


sunday candy (coming home)

by UnintentionallySketchy



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Everyone lives, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Ghosts, Like a lot of fucking angst you guys, Slow Burn, but also canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:55:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27333763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnintentionallySketchy/pseuds/UnintentionallySketchy
Summary: You gotta move it slowlyTake it in my body like it's holyI've been waiting for you for the whole weekor;The 'Jamie as a fuckboi / Dani the Au Pair and they love and they fight and they figure it out all the same' Friends with Benefits fanfic that nobody asked for. (Edit; this is a v loose description)or;She knows what you need. And that’s what is terrifying because it’s starting to feel like what you need is,Her.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 347
Kudos: 816





	1. i don't like mondays

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Some very important notes. This story is both an AU and also Canon at the same time.
> 
> The general principle of this story is going to follow canon but I took many liberties in how and why and where and who. So. A quick "catch you up guide"...
> 
> Most importantly, nobody important that we love is going to die in this fic. There will, however, still be ghosts and bad ladies, and Peter fucking' Quint. It's going to be angsty. It's not gonna be all fluff and candy. 
> 
> Rebecca/Peter = dead.  
> Henry = non existent in the grand scheme of things.  
> Viola = exists  
> Hannah = alive  
> Jamie = fuckboi  
> Dani = still awkward af but also alive
> 
> They are Jamie and Dani. They are at Bly. The year is 1987.

It’s Monday. You don’t care for Monday’s. 

If you’re being entirely honest, they are the absolute most dreadful day of the week. You’re not telling anybody that as if it’s some sort of news. Mondays are dreadful for everyone, but especially you.

And especially this Monday.

The alarm is going off and you hate the bloody thing. The noise is piercing and your head is pounding from the one too many Irish Car Bombs you downed to impress some woman, some American tourist, last night.. 

You wish, for a brief moment, that you were the type to be able to say no to a pretty face and beady eyes but as they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Or is it that you  _ can _ ? You have no idea if that’s even the proper saying but your head hurts and the light coming in through the windows is blinding you through the eyelids you have squeezed closed.

You reach out from under your pillow and hit the chiming machine. The silence let’s you breathe. 

And… groan?

No. You can’t be sure but you’re almost positive that wasn’t you.

You blink open the eye that isn’t pressed hard into the pillow and it all starts to come back to you. The booze, the rain, the walk upstairs, the-

You take stock of the discarded jeans at the doorway to the bedroom, the sweater hanging off the back of the bed, the bra on the nightstand. You take stock of the blonde hair on the pillow next to you and you smile. It wasn’t the worst night.

But it’s Monday and with Monday’s come responsibilities. Responsibilities in the form of caretaking for an entire property of plants who can only survive at your hands. Responsibilities that don’t include running your hands down the length of the exposed spine of the bare woman in front of you. Responsibilities that are leading you into the shower to rinse off the sweat and grain liquor from last night.

You can’t remember much, but you remember how she sounded when she came underneath your fingers. You can’t remember her name but you can remember how she moaned yours into your ear. You can’t remember how you got her upstairs but you remember unwrapping the gift you gave yourself for a hard week of work.

She’s still there, still passed out in your bed, when you return to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around your waist and your wet hair dripping like mad down onto your shoulders. You fight the urge to shake her awake - just to make sure she’s still breathing. But ultimately you decide it’s better to deal with a dead girl in your bed rather than suffer through an awkward morning after with somebody you were too drunk to recall entirely. 

You dry off in haste before sliding your denim overalls over your now clean body. You hear her roll over under the covers and you look at your watch, realizing you are already late for your day with the only thing you can truly love - your garden. 

So as you slip out the door, a scribbled note to the woman in your bed asking her to please lock up and leave the spare key under the mat, you don’t pay any mind to the way you feel just a small tug on your heart or your brain or your libido that has you looking back at her just for a moment.

* * *

  
You find it incredibly easy to be alone with the weeds and the flowers and the soil. You’ve been doing it most of your life. 

You’ve been at Bly Manor for a small handful of years now, five if you’re counting, and it’s a great good place - so they say. You believe them, it certainly looks great and good. You’ve made sure of that.

You were hired to tend to the ground and that’s what you do. The weeds, the shrubs, the grass, the vines. You tend to it all. You rake and sow and plant and plot. It’s busy work for idle hands and it keeps you from going absolutely mad.

Once upon a time, you had a family. You barely remember it now, it was such a quick time in your life if you get down to it. There was a mother, Louise, and a father, Dennis, and two brothers, Mikey and Denny. But it fell apart before your memories really had a chance to form and all you’re left with now is the flashes of anger and tears and fear.

Mikey was yours, really. Your responsibility. Your mom left him in his crib one day, just months after he was born, to go on a binge with a tosser from a dark corner of the earth who had gotten her addicted to the pipe. Your dad wasn’t around, he was 600 meters into the ground. Denny blamed you for your mom leaving even though you were only five and you can barely remember the sound of their voices.

You remember the feeling though. You remember what it was like to pick up the note out of Mikey’s crib that just said ‘ _ be back later _ .’ You remember the way Mikey was crying. You remember the way you put him next to you in your bed, throwing your doll to the ground to make room for your little brother. You remember how she never returned.

You remember social services coming and taking you both away, though you don’t remember how much later it was - days, weeks, months. You remember just a few days later when they ripped him from your arms again in the foster home despite promising you that they would never separate the two of you.

But you didn’t stop trusting people, not yet. Maybe that was naive but you were five and you had hope in the world still. You thought that maybe, just maybe, somebody would pick you and you’d be loved and you’d have that family again.

But nobody ever came. You moved from home to home and with each new bedroom came a new weight that you had to carry on your shoulders. 

It started out hopeful. After Mikey was gone you moved to live with Nancy and Tom and their 3 kids. They were nice and you liked them and they fed you well and kept you warm in the winter. But you knew you were temporary and so did their children and they never really let you forget. So one day after their oldest, Tommy Jr., locked you in the cupboard under the stairs and threatened to light the house on fire, they decided it was safer for everyone if you went to live somewhere else.

So you went to the Davidson’s house and they weren’t as nice as where you had just come from. All they had were children they got paid to take care of and they made sure you knew you were nothing but local trash and means of income. You were only 6 and you started to lose hope when nobody came to help you.

By the time you were 13 you were in your tenth home and on your tenth family and you knew now that grown men weren’t there to protect you and nobody was coming to your rescue. Nobody wanted you and you didn’t want anybody either. By Christmas, you were living with a group of older teenagers on the street in Brighton.

You liked being on the streets because everything was your choice, your decision. When you were in foster care, you were forced into what other people wanted you to do, how they wanted you to do it. You felt too much for the last eight years and it was time to forget how to feel.

It only took weeks before that urge to forget turned into a needle and whatever means it took for you to get the money to afford it. You found yourself sacrificing meals for drugs, and then your dignity for money.

And you were fit to care, but when your nights got long and your mind started to wonder and hate and feel, you could finally breathe when you felt the poison take over your body. 

You couldn’t keep track of how tired you were, really tired. Drained, positively, in every which way. You were tired of fighting to live, fighting to survive. Tired to being something you couldn’t stand to face. You had hated what you had slowly become. You hated what you slowly turned into. You really just wanted something to change. And when you got picked up at 17 for solicitation and possession, you were relieved that you might finally get a chance to rest.

* * *

“Miles Dominic Wingrave, keep your dirty rotten hands off my roses!” You shout into the house as soon as you walk through the laundry door.

“But I didn’t-” He starts as you round the corner, hands flying up in defense.

Miles is such an absolute pill and you don’t understand how anybody can put up with children. You know he’s only ten but he needs a quick lesson in maturity and since nobody else ever seems willing to step up, it often seems to be you.

You know it’s mostly not his fault. Given what the children have been through in the last 2 years between losing their parents and uncle in an awful car accident, and then losing the only person who had come to their rescue in Rebecca, it was natural for them to have problems adjusting. But you also know that you lost your parents, albeit in a different way, around the same age and nobody ever gave you the benefit of the doubt.

You and Hannah and Owen had taken on raising him and his sister, Flora, despite your brutal protest to never wanting children in or around your life. You were a piss poor example to children and you weren’t about to subject them to your own demons. You weren’t going to be your parents, at least that you could admit.

You minded yours and they theirs around the property and you were able to deflect most of the child rearing to your counterparts but it was a lot to handle as the children got older. Owen began searching for a new person to come take on the task of raising them only a few months ago and to your knowledge has been unsuccessful up until a few days ago when he skipped through the house saying he found a nice American girl to pawn them off on.

You would soon be free to go back to tending to weeds and not children and for this you were happy. 

Despite not wanting to welcome anybody new to this wretched home. This home that seemed to be cast in the shadow of dark clouds and bad misfortune. This house that she was tethered to despite her wanting to be any other place.

It had absolutely nothing to do with those two bloody children. Absolutely nothing at all.

“I don’t want to hear your lip, Miles. They didn’t cut themselves, did they then?” You approach him as he sits at the dining table and stare down on him heavily.

“I swear, Ms. Taylor, I didn’t. I swear!” His face looked sincere but the mess in the garden said differently and you scoffed as you turned around to wash your hands in the sink.

“I’ve told you to call me Jamie, Miles.” You look over your shoulder and throw him a smile to which you see him take a small breath. “But if I catch you again in my garden you’ll have more than a thorn in your bum, do ya’ hear me?” 

He nods his head quickly and you keep yourself from rolling your eyes at him. You turn back to the sink and decide that beheading a ten year old can wait until another day.

You hear Flora’s high pitched shriek from down the hall and you steady yourself. Flora’s bright disposition is a breath of fresh air in an oftentimes clouded home but she was also a bit of a headache and your hangover still hadn’t disappeared entirely.

And it was a Monday and you were hoping you could get into the afternoon hour before having to humour her and her good nature shrill. 

You hear Hannah tell her to calm down, you hear Owen laugh at Hannah and you smile despite yourself at the makeshift family you’ve created for yourself. 

“Miles! She’s here, she’s here and she’s even prettier than I imagined!” And you imagine she’s speaking of the new au pair and you guess it’s about time to plaster on your fake smile as you feel the lot of them enter the room. 

But as you dry your hands you feel an energy suck out of you.

_ Oh,  _ you hear. And then,

“Jamie?”

And the blonde hair and the American accent and the pretty blue eyes that locked on to you desperately while you had your head between silky legs smacked you right upside the head in your own kitchen.

“Well, fuckin’ hell.” 

You hate Mondays. 

  
  



	2. like i needed you then

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I guess I am literally just incapable of writing things that aren't filled with angst.

_ “Well, fuckin’ hell.”  _

It’s said under your breath and you are fairly sure nobody actually can hear the panic in your voice but the room is closing in and you still cannot remember her name.

Both Miles and Owen turn to you with the same bewildered expression. 

“Do you two know each other?” Owen points to you and then  _ her _ and then tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy. 

Miles, for all his innocence, looks like he’s trying to put all the words together and his eyebrows are furrowed and he’s trying to add up the pieces in the room that don’t make any sense to him.

“Miss Jamie you said a bad-” he says quietly to you and you really don’t have the time for this.

“-Shut up, you fuckin’ tw-”

“Jamie!” Hannah chastises you and this  _ American _ is still staring at you with a bit of a dropped jaw and you know you need to come up with something to say other than the fact that you fucked her last night and abandoned her this morning hoping to never see her again.

Owen is still looking at you and so is Miles and now Hannah has her hand on her hip and you can feel the air rushing out of your lungs quickly. Your eyes drop down to Flora and, god bless her, her face is nothing but pure disinterest. 

“Jamie?” Owen takes a small step towards you as your hands begin to sweat at your sides and you just washed them and this was not how you wanted this day to go. “Do you know Dani then?”

The blonde newcomer steps forward and you see something flash across her eyes that looks like understanding and you think maybe you could just lay down here on the ground and sleep and nobody would bat an eye. You think that maybe you could just sleep and pretend that you’re back in your bed and that every bit of this awkwardness will just go away.

It’s not as if Owen and Hannah aren’t aware of your history with the women that pass through your life. It’s not as if they haven’t seen you show up to work with deep red bruises on your neck. But you try not to bring it to Bly or bring it in front of the kids. You may not be a role model but you aren’t a blatant screw up.

“Sorry, no, w-we haven’t.” You hear her say and your eyes shoot up to meet hers as the air starts to enter your lungs again. “No, sorry. I just assumed- you said the name  _ Jamie _ in the car on the drive up here and so, I-I-I just assumed.”

She gives a small and awkward wave to you and in that moment you could kiss her for saving you the headache of Hannah’s stern lecture that would be sure to come.

Owen looks unconvinced, Hannah looks skeptical, Miles looks confused and Flora just looks hungry so it’s a relief when Owen just lets out an  _ okay _ and moves to the stove to fix plates for lunch. 

* * *

You eat in silence and steal glances across the table to her every few minutes; more for a check on your own sanity than anything else. Her blue eyes sing in the light and you’re trying not to think about the way she always seems to be looking back at you each time. 

And you can’t break the way you watch her lips form words, the way her accent makes sounds seem sharp and harsh and it makes you wonder how those lips would kiss and,

You search your mind for any indication of what happened last night and was there any way to know that she was going to be here, today, in your kitchen? But you hit a wall because you just drank too much and you know there is no way to retrieve those memories that are forever lost in the back of your mind. 

“So now, Hannah, you live in the house here and Owen you are?”  _ Dani,  _ you have now learned is the name of your mysterious bedfellow, breaks the quiet - just the tin of silverware on plates has been the soundtrack to your lunch.

“In town, with my mum.” He nods with a kind smile towards Dani. “My mum is,” he passes a quick glance to the kids to gauge their interest level in his words, “well, that is to say, I just can’t bear to stay away from her.” And he smiles at her again, but this one hollow.

Dani, you notice, has the type of smile that feels sad. Her lips pull at the corners of her mouth, but it remains muted. Like it’s under the surface, ripping at the shore, begging to be let out but it just feels… haunted, you notice. 

But you’re not noticing these things. 

“So is it just the three of you on the grounds then?” Her question is digging and you know she’s digging at something but it just makes you shift around in your chair while you look at her over your eyelashes. 

“Why, I suppose it’s a great big grounds fit for a small family.” Hannah smiles and brings the cup of tea Dani made to her lips. 

“It’s just-” Dani stops to move the mashed potatoes around her plate and you take the chance to look at Owen who is looking back at you. “I could have sworn I saw somebody up on the parapet earlier as we were coming in.”

“ _ On  _ the parapet?” Owen says and you shift again. You notice the kids are shifting too. You notice.

“Yeah up on the balcony?” Her eyes are looking to catch one of you, any of you, but you each seem to be avoiding her. Avoiding something you don’t want to say. “I know I saw something out there. I didn’t know if maybe it was a friend or a-”

And it’s not directed at you or towards you or really anywhere near you but you feel like it’s you that’s under scrutiny right now to come up with an answer. But you don’t have an answer. Not one you can give her. Not one you can voice out loud. Not in front of the kids or Dani or,

You have nothing to give them.

“I’m sure it’s just your eyes playing tricks on you, Poppins.” You settle on but it doesn’t seem to satisfy her when her hollow smile becomes a thin line and her eyes fixate on the way you shift some more. 

* * *

Lunch seemed to drag on and it was a relief when you finally made it back out into your garden. Your safe space. 

Or, it’s always been your safe place until now when you feel an exaggerated energy behind you and you come to the conclusion, before even turning around, that it could only be the American. 

And you just left and you don’t really want to have to deal with this today, tomorrow, this week.

“You didn’t drink your tea.” Her weight shifts from left to right and she hands over the cup to you.

“That’s because it was absolute shite.” You smile and she laughs but you take it anyway and give its contents a nice study before abandoning it on the table nearby.

She watches you move, watches how your hands hold the delicate china before dropping it down and then watches how you move back to the soil you were elbow deep in before she walked in. She watches and watches and watches your hands like she knows what they are capable of and it makes your throat run dry and your palms grow sticky.

She wants to say something, you can feel it. Her energy is nervous and uncomfortable and it’s hard to believe that this is the same woman that was so want to undress you just hours ago and,

“I just wanted to apologize.” She speaks and you don’t lift your head to look at her. “For before. For what happened before.”

You continue to knead the soil in the pot before you, hoping to coax the roots to life, feigning indifference for the woman before you. “S’all right, mate.” And it was all right, you think. 

“Yeah, but,” you move to the other side of the greenhouse and she follows you, “I-I just feel like you’re upset with me and I really don’t want to start out on the wrong foot and-”   


“And how would you like to start off then?” And when you look up and your eyes tie to hers, it’s hard to look away. Her eyes are so sad. Sorrow, you feel, is pulsing through the blue hue, like a cloud getting ready to soak up the sun.

You feel yourself trying to make a decision. A decision of where to go next right here, in this moment, with this pretty girl who seems every bit as charming as Owen had sold her to be a week ago when he came back promising some more help. She’s kind, she’s gentle, she’s dark and broody and you find yourself drawn to her in a way you can’t describe. But you’re deciding.

“Look, Poppins,” You turn your body towards her and she relaxes a bit.

“Dani, please.” And you nod but,

“Poppins.” And she smiles a bit and it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous out here in the daylight. “S’all good, yeah? I promise‘ya.” 

“Okay because I was thinking-” she cuts in and you decide. You decide.

“Listen,” you take a deep breath and you turn to face her fully, “I don’t really do this.”

“Do, uh, do… what?”

“This.” You motion between the two of you. “Feelings. Awkward tea in greenhouses.” Her smile falters so slightly that if you blinked, you missed it. 

“-oh, well-”

“Thank you for the tea.” And it’s a brush off and you know it and she knows it but you’ve decided.

She looks at you for just a quick moment. But it feels like longer and it looks like sadness and it immediately transports you back into a memory of sad eyes and tears and, 

_ “I need to go.” You say and it’s rushed and you’re starting to feel dizzy. _

_ “Jamie, please.” Molly begs you and you can’t meet her eyes because you don’t want to cave in and hear what she has to say. _

_ “It was an accident, Jamie, please.” She’s begging you and her voice is becoming fuzzy because your mind has stopped processing anything other than the voice inside saying you should have turned back. _

_ You’re almost to the door now, you suppose. The handle is in front of you and you can feel two sets of hands grabbing at you, begging you not to leave. _

_ And when you turn around to look into the eyes of the one that broke your heart, it’s not Molly you look at. It’s the ones filled with sorrow and sadness and guilt. It’s the ones that were supposed to protect you. It’s the ones that let you down.  _

“You know if you change your mind,” Dani’s voice, sharp and low, fills your ears and it brings you back to being grounded here, at Bly, now, with her. Her eyes are sad but they are new and you cling on to that.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Poppins.” And she backs up slowly, watching you watching her. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Last night was, well I assume it was fun,” and you nod to the bite mark that’s still fresh on her neck and she blushes. “But fun is all I’m capable of I’m afraid.”

And it’s not a lie, you think, as you watch her nod towards you and bite her bottom lip as she taps her fingers against the mug in her hand. It’s not a lie, you could be capable of more, but you aren’t and you already decided a long time ago.

And you’ve decided now with Dani, and this is how it’s just going to have to be.


	3. i don’t really know her, i only know her name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just love writing Jamie

It was just going to be one of those days, you decide.

It started in the morning when you woke up, quite literally, on the wrong side of the bed. It continued when you ran your foot into the corner of the doorway. It escalated when you walked in the kitchen and Hannah Grose was standing there with her hands on her hips, looking every bit ready to chew you up and spit you back out.

“What's it now then?” You stuff your hands into your pocket and sway on your heels. 

Hannah does this with you frequently, you know. It seems you are oftentimes in trouble for something nonconsequential; a little mud on the floor, your colorful vocabulary around the kids, the bluntness in which you charge into conversations with.

None of it’s your fault really that others can’t seem to understand you and your good intentions - or, your lack of care for how others perceive your intentions.

“Are you about ready to talk to me about what happened here yesterday morning?” Hannah shuffled around the island and removed the kettle off the stove.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.” You match her movements and pull out the chair at the head of the dining table.

“Fancy a brew?” She motions a teacup toward you which you take with eagerness.  
  
“Yea, please, thanks.” You smile but it falls short of your eyes. 

She sits across from you and you fiddle with the rim of the cup, spinning it around and around and focusing on the way the milky tea slaps against the sides. 

You hate when Hannah looks at you this way. She’s the closest thing you have to family, to a sister, to somebody who looks out for you. She’s always making sure you are healthy and cared for and it makes you feel warm each time you see her. But it also makes you feel like you’re hiding something from her when she looks at you behind dark eyes with a look on her face that says _I have you figured out._

You remember the first time you came here. It was five years and a lifetime ago. You were young, just about to hit your 25th birthday, and full of piss. You won’t pretend that you were an easy person to like when you got here. You were rough and angry and tired of a world that had constantly put you in a blender. But then, the Wingrave’s gave you a chance and you don’t know why but you weren’t about to waste it.

_“Oi, boy. What the hell do you think you’re doing?” It was this damn child again. You hadn’t been here but two fucking days and already he was pulling at your pant leg and following you around every which way, causing headaches and backaches and pretty soon he might actually kill you if you weren’t careful._

_Right now, he was rattling the ladder you were standing on, pulling ivy off the profile of the house._

_“I just wanted to see what you were doing, Miss Taylor.” But there’s a look of mischief in his small eyes and you are hesitant to think he has anything but nasty intentions. You can’t trust him. You can’t trust any of the 60 pounds of him staring at you from 3 feet off the ground._

_It’s probably more of a reflection on you than it is of the 5 year old who is looking at you with nothing but absolute confusion._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I have told you enough times to call me Jamie, can’t you get that through your little fuckin’-”_

_“Is there a problem over here?” You look down the way and see Hannah, the tall and beautiful woman you had been introduced to yesterday as the head of the home, walking towards you in a way that just exuded a confidence that suggested you keep your place._

_“No ma’am.” Miles snaps and immediately let’s go of the ladder, stuffing his hands into his pockets._

_You narrow your eyes at him but direct your words at her. “Nah. Not I.”_

_“Miles run on into the house, supper is almost ready.” She pats him on the head and he spins on his heels to head back in._

_You roll your eyes and pull the gloves off your hands while you teeter on your toes for balance at the top of the ladder, putting your head to the cool stone to balance yourself and your emotions. The gloves slide from your pocket and land on the ground below. You count to ten before you climb down to retrieve them._

_Hannah has them in hand by the time you hit your feet to the gravel below. She hands them to you with a huff, “You’d be smart to learn your place around here fast, Jamie. The Wingraves won’t stand long for any sort of attitude. Not towards the children.”_

_You snatch the gloves from her hands with your lips pulled right and you fight the urge to walk off the grounds right there and then. You aren’t one to be told how to handle your emotions or your business or who and how you direct those feelings towards and,_

_She must pick up on your demeanor because her voice lowers, but remains tight. “I understand they can be… challenging. But they are sweet kids, they truly are. You’ll make quick time to remember this is their house and you are simply but a guest here.”_

_Your hands are fiddling around your pockets now, feeling for the nails on your fingers, digging into the palms of your hands as you tell yourself to just hold your tongue._

_“Listen, I know you mean well. I understand that you have had a rough road to get here. I can see it in your eyes. This job will do you good, but you have to trust me when I say, you have to let yourself receive the good from it.”_

_You look up into her eyes and you can see her wisdom. You can see that she cares for you in a way that you maybe haven’t been cared for before. You can see what looks like family and comfort and support. You rattle off the reasons to go and the reasons to stay and you decide._

_You decide that Hannah Grose is a good reason to stay._

“You know what I am about to say, Jamie. Don’t give me the runaround. We are both too old for silly childish games. You were stone cold to that girl yesterday, so go on.” She moves to sit back in her chair as if to say, _I’m ready, lay it on me._

“I just-” You clear your throat, it breaks in the way you say it. “I don’t see the need to get attached to somebody new. Not after,” You let your voice trail off and you motion in the air with your hand. Hannah knows, you know.

She leans forward to place a comforting hand on your forearm and you settle it back onto the table.

“You can’t think like this one is temporary too, my darling. She’s fit to be here a long, long time, so long as those kids need raising, and we both know they have a while to go for that.” Her smile pulls at the corner of her lips and you smile too. Her smile is infectious, that infuriating woman.

“Don’t be silly, Hannah. She just got here.” Her eyes are hard when they meet yours. “Don’t give me that look, we don’t even know if she fits in with us yet. And we can’t have anybody in this house who doesn’t get along with us here.” 

Hannah seems to weigh that for a moment before,

“Rebecca is gone, Jamie. She’s not coming back. I don’t have to tell you-”  
  
You sigh and put up your hand to stop her. “No, you don’t.”

You sit in silence for a moment longer, you sip your tea, and you think about Rebecca. Rebecca and her dreams and her hopes and her sweet voice. Rebecca and her poor soul. Rebecca and the way that Peter fuckin’ Quint destroyed her, ripped her limb from limb. The way he swallowed up her smile and put out the light in her eyes. You think and you think.

You notice Hannah snicker across from you and you furrow your eyebrows. Surely, she isn’t thinking of what you are thinking.

“Knew your name from the car then was it?” Her eyes run up and down your face and you go red.

“Hannah-” your eyes tilt down and you bite the inside of your lip.

“Just knew it from the car. Had never once seen you before?” You can hear the smirk in her voice and you look back at her and you can’t help the way your lips turn into your cheeks and you laugh too. 

“Not a word to Owen.” You give her a look that you know is fruitless, you suspect they have already discussed the awkward encounter they witnessed yesterday at lunch. Come up with a whole story in their heads, you’re sure of that.

She nods and you add, “I didn’t know who she was, I swear to you. I thought, _oh an American. Never had me one of those before.”_

She swats at you, scandalized. “Don’t be crude!”

You laugh and she laughs and you know it’s okay because Hannah has always made you feel okay. Always made you feel like you belong here, like you’re family. Hannah has never once made you be anything but you. 

She stands up to take both your now empty glasses to the sink, “Are you staying tonight then?”

You have to think about the date for the moment, “I guess it is that time of the month, yeah?”

You nod, you don’t have much of a choice. Not that you’d make a different choice if there was an option anyway.

“I’ll make up the guest room for you then?” she throws over her shoulder and you shake your head quickly.

“The couch will be fine.” You stand and brush your hands on your coveralls. 

“Jamie.”

“The couch, really, is fine.” You smile at her and head back out to your garden. 

* * *

It’s late by the time you finish helping Hannah wash up from dinner. Owen is at the island, Dani next to him, both nursing a glass of wine while the cook and the housekeeper go back and forth about their day.

It’s nice to listen to them. Though they won’t admit it, they have a connection that goes far beyond that of coworkers or friends. They have a bond that you know is something you would aim for, if you were aiming for things.

But you’re not.

For them, however, it’s nice. It’s comforting to be in the presence of. It’s such a change from how you spent the first twenty five years of your life. It’s different from the loud yelling and the stumbling into furniture from your earliest memories with the people who made you. It’s different from the makeshift homes you were forced into as a child. 

It’s safe and it’s fine and it’s something you long to protect against any threat you see. It’s worth it, to you, to protect these people. This family you’ve created for yourself. 

You watch the new one, this Dani. You watch how she can’t ever seem to sit still and how her eyes seem to be hiding something. You watch how her hands are constantly picking at something, anything, just to stay busy. You watch the way that every now and then, you catch her watching you.

You notice a lot of darkness in her eyes. She smiles and she laughs but it’s never below the surface and you can’t help but think that whatever she’s hiding doesn’t seem like something that would be in your best interest to uncover. Nothing good would come of getting involved with this Dani Clayton from Iowa.

But she’s kind to the children and Hannah seems to take well to her. You haven’t talked to her since she first arrived, by design. You’ve avoided being alone with her, opting to always use the bathroom in the back of the house so as not to chance bumping into her in the common areas. At meals, you stay distanced from her and direct your eyes and ears and words and Hannah and Owen. 

Until,

“Well, time for me to turn in for the night then.” Owen stands from his seat and bows at the hip. 

Hannah dries her hands and looks back at him. “I’ll walk you out then.” 

“My pleasure.” He extends his arm for her to take and all of sudden, you’re alone. Alone with _her,_ with Dani.

You look around you for anything to toddle with before turning back to her, unable to avoid the inevitable. You can’t dwell on why that word, _inevitable,_ feels like the word for her that you aren’t ready for.

She reaches for the open bottle and pours herself another glass of wine. You nod when she asks if you’d like another glass as well.

It feels like forever before you sit down across from her, tip your glass to hers and let the way it clinks run through your body like a shock. Like a starter pistol.

“So how are you finding it here so far?” You take a sip of wine and let it coat your mouth. Numbing your tongue to let the conversation flow more smoothly.

“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s really nice. Everyone is so nice. The kids are so sweet, though a little more… mature, I guess would be the word - than I thought they would be, anyway. And Owen, and Hannah, wow, they are just so- and they have really made me feel at home.” She looks up to you and you can’t help it but you have this urge to press her buttons.

“So, most everyone, eh?” You lift an eyebrow at her while you take a sip of wine. There’s no malice in your voice, you haven’t made an effort until now.

“Your bark is worse than your bite.” Something flashes across her eyes, something you can’t ignore. Something that feels like a challenge that you aren’t sure you’re willing to take.

But then,

“What do you know about my bite?”

She blushes. Her cheeks light up so faintly under the soft light of the kitchen and it crosses your mind that she’s beautiful. You think you’ve seen this look on her face before. It’s familiar and it’s making you want to lean closer and trace the lines of her forehead but that’s dangerous and,

“Be careful, Poppins. I don’t want to have to show you.” And it’s a challenge from you as well you think, and it’s dangerous.

And you know your effect on women. You know how easy it is for you to get just about any girl you want, to do just about anything you want but you aren’t sure this is the girl you want to manipulate into your charm. And it’s dangerous.

Because you decided and you aren’t going back on that.

And you have to remind yourself of that when she licks her lips and then looks to yours for just a fleeting moment. 

You clear your throat and you down the rest of your glass in one easy gulp before you stand and announce that it’s time for you to head to turn in for the night.

If she’s put off by your sudden shift, she doesn’t show it. She just stands as well and carries both your glasses to the sink. You’re mesmerized by her hands as she rinses them out and puts them on a rack to dry. You’re mesmerized by the way her fingers work the glass smoothly and the way they dip in and out and around and they look so delicate. You clear your throat.

She walks out of the kitchen with you, shoulder to shoulder, and she seems alarmed when you don’t head for the door, but for the study instead. You explain that you’ve had just a glass too many and you better sleep it off and she doesn’t question it, not aloud, not to you.

She simply turns, reaches for your hand, squeezes, and then disappears up the stairs with a kind smile and those dark mysterious eyes.

And if you crawl under the warm blanket in front of the fire with a smile, that’s not for you to worry about. And if you shut your mind off to the way your hand still burns from where her fingers touched, then you won’t worry about that either.

It’s all too… _dangerous._

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Ideas? Theories? Yuh. 
> 
> Americans, we got this.


	4. do you wanna touch me (there, where)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are getting a bit dirtier. Be forwarned.

It’s not that you could get used to this, but it’s not as if you  _ couldn’t _ get used to this either.

It’s you and Hannah and Owen and the three of you are watching Dani put the kids to work in your garden. It’s a nice change of pace for Flora and Miles to be told what to do, rather than them running the show. You have watched as they have grown into little people with thoughts and opinions and personalities and you marvel at the way they have adapted.

But they aren’t without their own, itty bitty, baggage.

_ You had been with the Wingraves only 3 years when it happened. The kids had been staying at the manor for the summer, as they were to do, and they were so small. Charlotte and Dominic and Henry were back in London late in the week for meetings and were due up on the weekend for a long break. But they left London, and they never made it to their destination. _

_ The police told Hannah it was likely quick. Henry had run off the road to avoid an oncoming driver and careened into a tree. The coroner ruled that they all died on impact, and that Henry had been several drinks into his night. You and Hannah and Owen decided to take that last part to your grave. _

_ You suppose that it was easier that way, that they didn’t suffer. The kids either. You didn’t want them to have to carry around the burden of knowing that things could have been different, could have turned out okay. That their death was preventable, and not just some terrible tragic accident. You know they would never get over that, you never did.  _

_ The kids, being the only immediate family of the two brothers, inherited the Wingrave fortune, roughly 30million pounds. A large portion of that was to go into Hannah’s control until their 18th birthdays. Charlotte left aside something amount, nothing substantial, for Owen and Hannah and you. Owen invested hers, so did Hannah. You bought your flat.  _

_ They were 5 and 7 when Hannah and Owen sat them down in the kitchen and explained that mom and dad and uncle Henry had to leave and be with God. You rolled your eyes once, twice, but not where you could be seen. You stood back, a safe distance with the barrier of the kitchen island between you, and listened to the way Owen and Hannah were so gentle with their words and their kindness. There was such familiarity there, it was like family.  _

_ That’s why you stayed back. They were a family and you, well you were still a bit of the outlier. Sure, Hannah and Owen included you in nights out at the local pub or tea breaks out in the garden. But you were all staff. You came to work, you did your job, you went home.  _

_ You went home, you found the cutest girl in the pub, you talked her into coming back with you round to your place, and then you sent her in a cab home. _

_ That had been the routine as long as you’d been in Bly. And you quite liked the way your life was.  _

_ But you also thought that maybe this familiarity, like family, wouldn’t be that bad. Not with Owen and Hannah and now, god help ya, the kids too. And from that day on, through the sleepless nights by the kids when they cried and the tears they shed when they had a bad dream, that’s what they would be for you; family. _

“How are they doing?” She shouts at you from across the plants and you shake your head in disbelief at the amount of dirt on her face.

Dani Clayton, you’ve gotten to learn more about her over the past few weeks. Three to be exactly.

Like how she smells like fresh dew from a rainstorm and honey. Like how she is absolute shite at any form of food or beverage. Like how her nose twists up and crinkles when she’s thinking about whatever she traps back into her head.

You blinked and time flew by with the new au-pair. It only took you a couple days before you decided to give into Hannah’s stares and include the American. The one you had really been determined to keep at a constant arms length. Until you decided it would be more fun to press her buttons.

“Lookin’ great.” And it’s a little bit sarcastic, a little bit smug, but it’s sincere. And so is the wink and the half smile you toss her way.

“Flirt.” You look out of the corner of your eye over at Hannah and she shakes her head. 

And so what if you were. You learned pretty quickly that this Dani girl was pretty easy to get under her skin. It was a little game you liked to play with her; see just how far you could press her before she would start to turn a rose colored hue and bite the corner of her bottom lip and,

It was easy to think about the way she felt underneath you that first night.

Things have come back to you, little by little. You think, anyway. It was in the way you would watch her hands and her lips and you started to remember just how your skin reacted under their touch. It’s possible it was all just fantasy.

You indulge yourself in teasing her. In leaning over her too close to grab the salt on the dinner table. You walk by too closely in the hallway. You wink every time you catch her looking at you. You find yourself entranced by the way her mouth and tongue move over her words when she speaks, sharp and high.

But you keep your words to her short, brisk, cold. Arms length, you repeat to yourself. Arms length.

But then, you always did have a thing for Americans.

“Ladies, can I offer you a G&T?” Owen presents a platter of drinks to you and Hannah and you both accept with a thanks and a nod.

“And how are things out here?” Owen asks as he sits down at the table and holds up his glass in recognition towards her.

Dani is good with the children and it’s hard not to notice the way they seem so much lighter and  _ themselves  _ they have seemed since she came around. 

“One might say they are perfectly splendid.” You laugh at yourself and watch how Flora twirls around Danny in her plaid skirt and mud covered tights. 

Well, Flora is anyway. Miles, still is off in a way that you can’t place your finger on it but you know you aren’t the only one who notices it. His temper is short and his words are bold and he constantly seems to be finding trouble to get himself into. Constantly doing things just to piss you off, too.

“I really like this young girl, I do.” Hannah takes a small sip of her drink and brushes the swat of it onto her shirt. “She’s got that sort of thing the kids need.”

“She’s good on them.” You agree. “Better than the lot of you were. Always wiping their butts and feeding them cake.” You make sure to smile so they know it’s a joke.

“Oh please. At least they aren’t afraid of me.” Owen laughs and lights a fag beside you. You take one out as well.

The kids aren’t afraid of you, that’s just silly.

You flick the lighter towards your face and look to Dani, who is looking back at you. You catch her eyes and smile around the butt of the cig and let your right eye wink. She looks back to Flora immediately and you back to Owen.

“Nobody here is afraid of me, Owen.” You narrow your eyes at him and shake your head playfully. “But if they know what’s good for them, then they just know to keep away.” You give him a light push in his side and Hannah laughs.

“Do they?” Owen lifts his eyes to Dani and you know what he means, you do, and you hope Dani knows too.

_ She didn’t make a sound when you found her. She didn’t cry, she didn't scream, she just stared. You wish she had done something, fought back, clung to you. _

_ But she was empty, almost. This poor hollow girl.  _

_ You were out early in the morning, just after sunrise. You got most of what you needed to do before Rebecca woke the kids up and Owen arrived to make breakfast. The grounds were quiet and safe, which was a nice reprieve from how it felt sometimes, select times. _

_ You walked from the greenhouse back to the workshed to get the barrow and the hoe and finally tend to the weeds springing up around the driveway. You thought about your plan for the week and the weed and the girl you had in your bed last night. You thought about a mess of things. And then you noticed. _

_ You noticed a small figure, only a few feet off the ground, staring into the fog. You noticed the way her face was pale and vacant. And as you approached closer to her, you noticed exactly what she was staring at. _

_ It didn’t take you long to process seeing Rebecca in that pond. Bloated, floating, rotting. It was foul, even from far, the way you knew you wouldn't recognize her face. You had no idea how long she had been in there. It was Monday. _

_ You remember picking Flora up and cradling her in your arms and cooing in her ear to make sure she was okay. You think it was to keep you from going absolutely mad too. _

_ You didn’t have to explain to her what she saw, she knew. She knew what no child should ever know and that’s death. She knew too much of it.  _

_ She clung to you the whole day. Her little hands fisted themselves into the straps of your overalls and she never once cried. You hated that. The dead look on her face was far worse than any tears could be. So you held her while she clung and you made sure she ate. _

_ Hannah and Owen left the two of you most of the day, sitting in Flora’s room, playing with her dolls and coloring books. You read her a story and helped her take a bath. You put her in her fuzziest pajamas and tucked her in. You watched as the breaths got deeper and you knew that she was finally in a safe and happy place. _

_ You stayed with her that night, in her room. You slept there on the floor. You never thought to let her out of arm's reach that day and you think you changed your mind on children at that moment. _

_ No, you still didn’t care for them but you loved this one and you committed to protecting her. _

“Do you think Rebecca was selfish?” You break the comfortable silence and Hannah looks taken back by your question.

“Well, I suppose, yes.” She rubs the back of her head, thinking over your words. There’s hesitance in her voice, like she’s not sure there’s a right answer.

You start speaking before she can finish. “I think it was selfish. I think death like that, it’s always selfish-”

“-I don’t think it’s that black and white-” Owen interrupts you as he uncrosses his legs.

“-I think it absolutely is.” You talk over him and his mouth snaps shut. “I think it bloody fucking is when you have two wee humans counting on you for everything that they have. Especially when you  _ know _ what they went through and you  _ know _ what they’ve seen. It was selfish.”

“She wasn’t herself. You know that.” Hannah always liked to give Rebecca a pass, always the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t know that we really even knew her. Not that well.” You believe what you say, you think she ended up being a stranger. You remind yourself why you keep your distance.

“-Jamie-”

“Nope.” You shook your head, paying no mind to Hannah’s protest. “I didn’t know who she was there at the end.” Your eyes lock on to the statues around you until movement in the foreground catches your eyes. “I only knew her corpse.” 

Dani looks back over her shoulder and smiles at you again. It’s the fifth time in an hour. You stand up and walk to the greenhouse. You want to just be alone.

* * *

It’s hard for you to explain why the thought of Rebecca gets you so worked up.

You never really got to know her, the ins and outs of her, that well. She was only with the kids and at Bly for a few months. A few tumultuous months for her, from what you knew. But you observed her and you had a knack for observing people.

She had such a bright energy when she arrived. She was a real Mary Poppins type and the kids absolutely loved her. You found yourself drawn to her in a way you didn’t with many people. It wasn’t any sort of sexual attraction, but the way you would imagine how you would be drawn to a soul connection. Somebody that could be the friend you never got to have.

But you watched her get sucked into Peter Quint’s vortex and you knew that maybe Rebecca needed a friend more than you did. Maybe she needed somebody to look out for her. Maybe she needed help saving herself.

And you feel like you failed her. You had let somebody into your heart, told them things, confided in them and you failed to help her. And you always found a way to blame yourself for that, even though the other two insisted that you shouldn’t,  _ couldn’t.  _

Still then, better to keep your distance. 

And of course, just then,

“Hey. Are-are you okay?” You turn to face the doorway of the greenhouse and Dani is standing there. Dani, and her nervous energy and her inability to read the signs that you have tried to send;  _ stay away, stay away _ . 

“I-you left the courtyard really quick.” She takes a hesitant step towards you as she makes her way through the threshold. “I asked Hannah to watch the kids for a sec- are you okay?” She asks again.

You lean back on the table behind you, your hands bracing on either side of you. You cross your ankles and stare down to the ink stain on your thigh. 

You shake your head and she takes another step towards you.

“You look like you’d seen a ghost.” She laughs, but it’s apprehensive.

“Maybe I did.” Your words are clipped and you can’t tell if she can read you. You

Another step. Another subtle shake of your head. You think maybe she can.

“Is there anything I can do?” She’s closer now, just a few feet in front of you, and you lift your eyes to meet hers. They are kind and dark and they still feel empty but like you could fill them up.

And you decide, you decide.

A click and a kiss.

That’s how it starts. A click and a kiss.

You reach forward to her and grab her jaw, pulling her the last two feet of space between the two of you. You tongue hits her before your lips and teeth do. Her taste is familiar.

Her tongue clicks against her teeth as she pulls back and studies your face. She’s deciding, you think. You don’t want anybody thinking, you’re done thinking.

You kiss her again and pull her into your body, you can feel her tense, still thinking and,

“Fun is all I’m capable of, Poppins.” You murmur against her lips. And you feel her take a breath, take some of your breath. She nods against your lips. “You sure?” And she nods again.

“Thank fuck.”

You spin her around and pin her to the edge of the table behind you. It’s dirty in here and it’s cold out there but, still, all you can think of is how  _ familiar _ she feels. 

The way she pulls on the collar of your jacket, the way she bites at your bottom lip. You feel like you’ve been here before, time and time again, and you can tell how addicting this feeling, her against you, could be. 

She slides her tongue across yours and you push harder into her against the table. It’s desperate and it’s hurried and you feel so much more than you did just minutes ago when you were thinking about,

Something so far from your mind.

You slide the tip of your tongue against the back of her teeth and she tightens her squeeze around your waist. She moans, so quietly, into your mouth and you can feel the way a noise from the back of her throat reverberates all the way from your mouth to your throat to your chest. 

It’s on the next moan, throatier and louder this time, that leaves her mouth after you slide your hand on the skin under her sweater that you take the chance to breathe against her lips and then move your mouth to jaw; to chin; to throat; to neck; to collar bone.

She tastes like tea and you smile against her skin because you remember watching her spill it on herself at lunch. You bite at the bone as it protrudes against her pale skin, right on the sensitive corner of her throat, and she moves her hand from your jacket to your hair. 

It’s when she pulls and it almost hurts that you decide. 

You decide.

Without moving your lips from her shoulder, you lift her thighs to prop her up on the end of the table. Her legs fall apart and you move between them, bringing your face back up to look directly in her eye. Your hand is on her chin and your thumb is grazin her lips and you want to stick it just directly into her mouth and feel her hot breath everywhere on your skin.

You feel yourself lean forward, into her orbit, when she grabs the hands you have rested on her hips. She holds them in place, she holds your eyes in place too, while she strokes the backs up and down with her thumbs.

She decides.

She moves your hands in between the two of you and it takes a second for you to process that she’s placing them on the zipper of her jeans. It takes another second for you to process that you’ve already undone the buttons and you’re even closer to her than before. You’re so close that your mouth, open and breathing, is brushing against hers doing the same. 

She guides your hand under the hem of her shirt, down past the waistband of her jeans and her underwear and you feel smooth skin and then nothing but wet. Nothing but, everything and,

“Fuck.” She says, closing her eyes, breathing directly onto your tongue but you feel it everywhere.

You feel her on your neck and your back and your legs and most importantly, your fingertips. That’s what you focus on. You focus on the way she coats your fingers and your palm and the way she’s just looking at you; waiting; mouth still open, still breathing on you.

Her eyes are dark and they are begging. And so you push two fingers into her and curl your fingers forward. The sound that leaves her lips should be criminal. You bring it into your mouth and wrap her tongue in yours. Your hand moves fast, slapping into her, and your wrist is starting to hurt and she’s gripping onto the back of your bicep as hard as she can.

It’s quiet in the room, other than the breathing and the sound of your hand between her legs. But you can hear the way her energy shoots through you, through your bloodstream. It travels from your toes to your ears. She’s electric.

You rest your head on her shoulder and she grips the back of your hair. It’s tight and it hurts and it makes you feel so alive. Alive in ways you haven’t. Not in so long. 

And it’s not surprising when you curl your fingers up against and she grabs your wrist that you think she’s about to come. You’re unraveling her and she’s unraveling you and you think this could be dangerous but when you lift your head again to look in her eyes you think maybe not. 

She rests her forehead against yours and you can feel her tighten against your fingers right as she goes to kiss you and then,

The sound she makes shouldn’t send you nearly to your knees. You should be able to eat your own smug smirk, run your hands on the side of your pants, and thank her for the fun. You should be able to.

But instead, you stay. You stay inside her for an extra few seconds and when she finally begins to breathe again, you pull out slowly from her. She collapses against your front and you worry that maybe this wasn’t just fun. That maybe this was something more and it makes your blood pressure rise.

But as she drops to her knees before you and slowly pulls down the zipper, it starts to even out and you decide.

_ Just fun, Poppins.  _


	5. my best friend's girl

This is what had become your routine; you came to work, you did your job, you did Dani.

It had been a few weeks since she came after you when you ran off from the courtyard and you reminded her that fun was all you could give her. She never brought it up to discuss afterwards and neither did you, but it didn’t stop you from finding her and pushing her up against walls every now and then.

Which is where you were now.

Hannah and Owen had taken the kids down to the garden to pick fresh herbs and tomatoes for that evening's dinner and it wasn’t but a minute after the door clicked shut behind them that Dani was grabbing your hand and pulling you into the laundry room.

It was always rushed, like you were trying to beat the clock; trying to beat your own heart before it caught up to what your body was doing. And Dani seemed to like it rushed. She seemed to always be ready, eager, wanting, when you would slide the waistband off her hips and,

She moaned softly into the still, quiet air as you spun her around so her face was pressed into the back of the door and her hands came up on either side of her to brace her weight. You could hear the way her nails scraped against the wood grain as you kissed your way down the backs of her thighs, following the fabric as it slid down to her ankles.

You stood and pressed into her from head to toe as you moved her hair away from her spine and twisted it up into your fist, pulling her head back towards you. You bit at the available skin on her neck and she breathed out.

“No marks this time.” She said between soft pants and you smiled into her skin. “I mean it, Jamie.” 

You sunk your teeth in just a little harder to the thin skin of her throat and you feel her tense and pull back from you just a bit.

“Jamie.”

“Fine. No marks.” You concede but your hand is still knotted into her hair and it’s likely tangled in a way that will take her a bit to comb through and you love having this type of power. 

You snake your free hand around her naked waist and pull her back into you even more as you run your fingertips lightly down her front, teasingly slow, until you hear her groan in annoyance and anticipation. Getting a rise out of her has always been your favorite. 

When you feel her hips start to jerk and pull and you can tell her body is alight with impatience and it’s so easy to want to stay here, oscillating on this edge of control and want and need and you have to remind yourself that this is just fun, this isn’t forever and it shouldn’t start to feel like it.

So instead of reveling in the way she’s almost letting her body beg you, you run your fingers down between her wet folds and you quickly have to reject the idea to fall to your knees right there and lap her up entirely. She feels warm and your chest aches with the want to fill her up entirely. Fill her up with hands and pleasure and comfort and safety.

You lean your forehead on the nape of her neck and breath in the way her body is starting to sweat in want how warm it makes you feel all over. You think about the way your middle finger just so carefully slides back and forth over her hooded clit and the way you can coax out the softest mews from her lips.

“J-Jamie.” Her voice breaks and you know what that means. It means it’s time to stop toying and the desperation in it leaps through her mouth into yours and grabs hold of the arteries around your heart, stunning it.

You slowly slide one, and then two, fingers inside her gently and you can immediately feel the way she tightens around you while your palm rests gently on her clit. You don’t push in, or pull out, but you simply curl and move and twist inside of her; a mirror for the way the nerves in your chest are spinning.

She begins to move, back and forth and up and down and it makes you feel alive. Knowing that it's you, doing this to her, letting  _ her _ let  _ go _ of the control she so tightly holds onto in every single corner of her life, it makes you feel like you being alive has a purpose.

It’s fun, that’s what you tell her. It’s all simply fun.

The way your wrist starts to hurt from reaching around won’t get her to where she needs to be so you pull out of her swiftly and she whimpers at the loss of contact, bringing her head down onto the door hard. But when you enter her fully with a third finger from behind only seconds later, you have to hold her up from the force.

And she feels so good, you think. She feels like soft and safe and coming home and it scares you so you push in harder and focus on the way she breathes against your chest. The in and out is like a metronome on your sanity. It’s all so dangerous - the way you have her at your fingers and the way she has you at her mercy. It’s so, so… dangerous.

She’s close, you know, already. You have learned her body so well over the last few weeks that you know when she bites her lip and the moans stop that she’s only seconds away from careening off the edge and leaving you to catch her. And you’re right, because you feel her tighten and then you feel her push off the edge of the cliff and you feel yourself opening yourself entirely to her for a safe landing.

She coats your hand and you keep going because this feeling, this rush, is addictive. And when she says,

“Jamie, I can’t again.” 

You push harder and say,

“Shhh, yes you can.” And her body is rocking back into yours and you can feel the way she’s dripping onto your wrist and all the way down to your elbow. 

It’s erotic in a way you didn’t know was possible and it’s dangerous because you _ feel _ and it’s dangerous because you know there is no way this ends with a gentle landing but you can’t seem to help it when you bite at her neck even harder than before.

The way she yelps is both alarming and expected and so is the way she comes again just moments later. You still and you lean all your weight back into her body as you untangle your hand from her hair and her other from between her legs and wrap both of them around her middle and hold her tight to you.

You hear the way Flora screams across the property and you know you only have minutes until they bust through the laundry room door and it’s time to pretend like none of this has happened. But for now there’s time and you’ll enjoy it for what it is.

* * *

It all happens so fast. 

You hear the sudden commotion in the kitchen from outside while you’re pruning the hedges and you immediately go running, dropping the shears at your feet.

The scene is confusing for you to take in all at once. Dani is on the ground and Flora is in her arms and Miles is crying at the stovetop. You stand there for a moment trying to assess where to go and what to do before Hannah runs in behind you and immediately kneels at Dani’s side.

“I heard a scream and I came- what happened?” She is out of breath and you can tell she likely just ran from wherever she had been in the house.

Dani is cooing into Flora’s ear, attempting to calm the crying child, while brushing her hair back softly. 

“I-I-I’m not entirely sure?” Dani looks to Hannah and then up to you once she registers you standing there looking down at her with a questioning expression. 

You’re still so confused what happened and who screamed and why… why there’s blood on the side of the island?

“Let me have a look.” Hannah says as she reaches for Flora who transfers easily from Dani to Hannah and you take in the small child, checking for what caused this. 

Dani looks frazzled and terrified and you can see that there’s a thin slice against her palm and you decide that’s where the blood came from. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She shakes her head as Hannah cradles her injured palm gently. 

“Jamie, can you get me a rag from the laundry?” Hannah throws over her shoulder and you still haven’t moved. Still stock still, still processing. “There’s a stack of clean ones right on top of the washer.” 

Your eyes are locked on Dani who is looking down at her hand and you feel this anger bubble up inside of you. This indignation at the fact that this delicate woman is in pain on the floor and why can’t everybody be gentle with her. Why can’t you be gentle with her?

“Jamie?” Hannah repeats and looks at you when you don’t move but your eyes have traveled up and around and through and they lock on Miles who looks stunned and you immediately move towards him. 

“What did you do?” You know your tone is harsh but you can’t imagine how he didn’t have something to do with this.

He bristles back and the tears on his cheek are drying and he looks so small but you know that if something happened to Flora or to Dani then there’s only one person in this room that could be responsible.

“I didn’t-”

“Hey, he didn’t do anything.” You hear Dani and it’s placating and you try to regulate your breathing as you stand over this  _ child. _

The kids are both sitting at the kitchen table with Hannah while Dani is up and rinsing off her hand by the time you return with a clean rag and a first aid kit. You glare at the back of Miles’ head when you walk past them without a word and meet Dani’s side at the sink.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened, then?” She looks up at you when you reach over to turn the cool water off and pick up her injured hand to look it over.

You grab the clean towel and blot at it, pleased that the bleeding appears to have finally stopped.

“It was just an accident.” She says and you can tell it’s only a half truth.

Your eyes say that much when you raise your eyebrows and reach for the antiseptic in the medical bag and pour it onto a corner of the towel.

“I swear if he even-” She winces at the acid in your voice and the alcohol on her hand as you carefully blot the deep cut. “Sorry.” 

“He didn’t  _ do _ anything. It was an accident.” She shakes her head and bites at her lip. You ache to reach out and soothe the lines on her face.

You scoff, “I don’t believe in accidents, only intentions.”

You level her with a look and she sighs, looking over to the children who were now laughing beside Hannah while they nursed on glasses of chocolate milk.

“He was reaching for the knife at the same time I was. It-it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to-” You feel her looking down at the way you delicately cup her hand and reach for the bandage on the table. “Flora was just scared when I cursed and then Miles started crying - I think he felt bad - and I get a little woozy with blood so.”

“Does it hurt?” Your eyes flutter between hers and her hand as you wrap it with gauze and then a soft cotton bandage. Around her fingers, palm, wrist, to keep it in place.

She looks up into your eyes and just holds you in place. “It’s better now.” 

“You need to keep this bandage on for now. No getting it wet, you hear me, Poppins?” You drop her hand and she brings it to her front and cradles it in her other hand when she nods. “If I find out you didn’t listen, there will be serious consequences.”

You smile and her’s finally cracks and you breathe. 

* * *

There’s dinner and then wine and then storytime - as much as you hate it. But you smile when Dani smiles and you’re relieved that the stress of earlier seems to be behind everyone.

It’s late and it’s time for the kids to get ready for bed and you insist on giving Flora her bath while Dani tucks Miles in. You’re wrapping her up in a soft warm towel when you feel Dani’s eyes on you from the doorway and you turn to see her with her arms crossed and an easy grin on her face. 

It feels entirely domestic in a way you aren’t prepared to dwell on. 

It’s later when you’re sitting beside her in front of the fire, Hannah and Owen curled up in the chairs across, and you’re telling Owen about the cacophony of the afternoon that you feel her move into you under the blanket just a bit.

And when Hannah tells Owen about how you swooped in to play doctor, you feel the way her toes dig underneath your leg and wiggle - just a bit, just to let you know she’s there.

It’s quiet now and you listen to the way the fire crackles and the way Hannah and Owen giggle to themselves in hushed voices while Dani studies them from a distance.

“Rather that was you all cuddled up?” You tease her and she swats at your arm. 

“They seem like a good match. How long have they been together?” She tilts her head to the side and her dark eyes soften. 

You feel a longing in her voice and you know that love is a sore subject for her. You can hear it in the way she says your name, like she’s afraid of the way it feels on her tongue. 

“They aren’t.” Your lip ticks upwards because you know that this is something she didn’t know.

“You lie!”

You laugh at the way her voice sharpens at its highest. “I would never. He’s sweet on her but won’t make the move. She’s been scalded one too many times. So they just play this roundabout game with each other and the rest of us just have to sigh.”

“Wow, they just seem like such a perfect match. I figured they were just keeping it hush.”

“Not all relationships are how they look, Poppins. And relationships here at Bly don’t tend to end well.”

She shrinks a bit at your words and you want to reach out to her and assure her that… well you aren’t sure. Relationships don’t work well at Bly. You’ve found that they don’t work well at all.

“There was a couple here, before you.” You start and her interest is piqued. “Rebecca and Peter.” Your eyes squint at just the name of that man. “They were… toxic. He was toxic for her, and she paid the price.” Your eyes focus on the fire and the way it warms your skin.

“I watched how he twisted into her, took hold of who she was. She lost herself entirely to him.” You feel Dani’s eyes on you and you turn to meet them. “Love and possession, I know how people can mix those two up. But it was what led to her death. And his as well.”

She studies your eyes for a moment and it’s deep and there’s a secret behind them and you wait. Whatever she wants to say, it’s important. 

“My parents, they were that way.” She clears her throat and looks down to the bandage. “My dad, he was… he wasn’t a good person. I watched him for years and he would just wail on my mom. She wasn’t without her problems, she drank like a fish and she put herself before any of us but she didn’t deserve that.” She looks to you and you nod just to let her know you’re listening.

“Finally she left him, took me with her. And I was so proud of her but I didn’t really understand it at the same time and I missed my dad so much. But he never came after us. I learned eventually that he didn’t love me, not the way he should have. You don’t treat people that you love like they are your property. Like they belong to you. Like they are disposable when they are gone. But -” She stops and she licks at her bottom lip and you trace the motion with your eyes. 

“Love is supposed to be this thing that makes you better, right? That’s what I have always heard. It’s just like this thing that you’re supposed to feel all over in your toes and your fingers and in your chest and your eyes. And that you just know, when you feel it.” She looks at you and you can’t tear your eyes away and it’s dangerous.

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head and she pulls her knees to get chest, “maybe it’s not meant for me.”

Her smile is sad and you think that maybe you haven’t really known love either.

_ You get home around six that night and you feel fresh with the way the snow is falling lightly outside. The way it clings to your eyelashes. _

_ You feel the jangle in your pocket. The box feels heavy, in weight and in meaning, but you also feel like it’s a key to the next step and you’re ready for the next step. _

_ At least, you think you’re ready for the next step.  _

_ You’ve been with Molly for just over a year now and it’s fast, sure, it’s so fast and you’re still so young, but it’s the only thing that’s really made you feel alive since you got clean and it’s that first love sort of romance that has swept you up and made you believe in people again. _

_ And maybe you can start to believe in yourself again, too. _

_ You met Molly after you served your three years, got out a year early because of overcrowding and good behaviour. She was recently released too, from rehab, and you shared a room with her at the halfway house. _

_ She kept you clean, and safe, and sane. And you fell in love fast. You were only 20 but you’d already been through so much and you were ready to be somebody’s. Finally. _

_ And you know that this ring, this flimsy piece of jewelry that you saved up for three months to buy doesn’t actually mean anything but it means that you’re closer to being okay. She made you closer to okay. And that’s something.  _

_ You’re cold, it’s the first real night of winter you’ve had in London this year and you can’t wait to get into your flat and spend the night wrapped up in her and in love and in new beginnings. But as you push open the door, something feels wrong. _

_ The air inside is stuffy, like the heat has been running non-stop and you need to open a window to let it escape the walls. It feels foreboding like you shouldn’t walk in any further and something is telling you to turn back, turn back, turn back. _

_ You wish you had listened. Everything might have been different if you had just listened.  _

_ “Molly?” You call into the quiet space and then again when you get no response. “Molly?” _

_ Dread starts to sneak up your throat, your spine, and the urge to vomit builds in the deep part of your belly. Turn back, turn back. _

_ And then you hear it, it’s so faint and for a second you think you might have imagined it in your head but it has you pushing the door to your bedroom open.  _

_ And then, you see her. Not Molly. No. You see somebody else, a stranger to your bed, and suddenly you can’t breathe. Your lungs are filling with dread and despair when you realize that Molly isn’t in danger. No, she’s fine, actually. And you don’t know how that could be. _

_ Because this stranger isn’t a stranger at all. It’s not.  _

_ “Jamie-” And you don’t want to hear this, not from her. Not from either of them. “Jamie, it’s really not what you think.” _

_ “I need to get out of here.” You back out of the doorway and you’re trying to find your footing to the door before you can process what’s happening. _

_ “Jamie.” And it’s not Molly who speaks and it’s all you need to see red and anger and hurt. She comes closer to you and all of a sudden she’s in front of you with a sheet wrapped around her and you are clenching your fists at your sides because you’re close to swinging. _

_ “Claire, I am not fucking kiddin’ ya back the fuck away.” You count; one, two, three, four- _

_ She was supposed to be your best friend. She has been since, well, since you went south and before you got in trouble. She was the closest thing you had to family. She was the only person you had before you got sent away and she was the only person who came to visit you when you did. _

_ She was supposed to be your family. And all she did was rip you apart. _

_ “I need to go.” You say and it’s rushed and you’re starting to feel dizzy. _

_ “Jamie, please.” Molly begs you and you can’t meet her eyes because you don’t want to cave in and hear what she has to say. _

_ “It was an accident, Jamie, please.” She’s begging you and her voice is becoming fuzzy because your mind has stopped processing anything other than the voice inside saying you should have turned back. _

_ You’re almost to the door now, you suppose. The handle is in front of you and you can feel two sets of hands grabbing at you, begging you not to leave. _

_ And when you turn around to look into the eyes of the one that broke your heart, it’s not Molly you look at. It’s the ones filled with sorrow and sadness and guilt. It’s the ones that were supposed to protect you. It’s the ones that let you down.  _

It’s only another glass of wine more until Hannah heads off to bed and Owen heads home and Dani offers you her bed.

You have to fight the urge to go with her, go to bed with her, and let yourself be consumed entirely. 

“Just fun, Poppins, remember?” And you’re starting to have a hard time finding the line that separates but she’s gracious when she thins her lips into a line and nods once in understanding. 

“Well, goodnight then.” And she steadies her bandaged hand on your bare arm and you’re reminded of today and the fear and anger that ran through you had when you saw the blood and her and,

So when she leans in to kiss your cheek, your turn your head and capture her lips in a tender kiss that feels like everything you don’t know how to say. And you think maybe she hears you because when she pulls away, you think her eyes lighten just a bit.

And when she goes up the stairs and you hear her door close, you curl up into the cushions of the couch because you aren’t ready to stop protecting her. Not tonight, not yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. We did it.


	6. now i don’t hardly know her

You’ve gotten a little used to seeing things on this property that really shouldn’t be there. Muddy footprints on stairs, shadows in the dark, figures in the corner. All seemingly harmful, but unexpected - so yeah you were used to seeing a litany of things that shouldn’t be there. 

But her standing above you when your eyes blink open the next morning wasn’t one of them. 

“Hey?” Your voice is harsh with unanswered questions and the way the dry air chokes through your throat.

You take note of where you are. Your back hurts from sleeping on the chair and one of these times you may have to take Hannah up on the offer to sleep in the guest room but you like the proximity to the door here. You twist the knots out and let the bright light from the sun wash onto your face as you take in the woman in front of you.

She looks like an angel, the way the light shines in behind her and surrounds her unstyled hair as it falls at her shoulders. Your eyes hurt with sleep and you blink them a few times in a row, trying to get your bearings. You take in her nightgown and her bare feet and the bandage around her hand. You sit up and turn to her, your legs falling off the front of the sofa.

“What’s wrong? Is it your hand? Does it hurt?” You reach for her hand to inspect it, pulling her forward into your space. She laughs lightly and the sound wakes up everything in your body.

“My hand is fine. I just…” She looks at you quizzically and you smooth out your features back to that of indifference. “ I didn’t expect to find you here this morning.” This morning feels like hope.

“I just wanted to stick around,” you look to her wrapped hand, “just in case my nursing skills were necessary.” The smirk that pulls at your lips is devious.

She looks over your shoulder to the stairs and back down to you. And then, she appears to decide.

She takes another small step towards you before swinging her leg over your body and settles down onto your hips while your hands grab for her instinctively. 

“What are y-”

“Shhhh,” she laughs as she puts her finger to your lips. “The kids won’t be up for a few hours but you have to be quiet.”

And you want to protest because it feels wrong to be out here in the open, with the kids so close, and your heart forgetting to separate itself from the rest of you but when she leans down to bite your bottom lip, you find it hard to care at all.

You’ve noticed something about the way Dani kisses you. You’ve kissed a lot of girls and you’ve felt a lot of things but when she does it, when Dani does it, it almost feels like you can feel her thoughts and how they dull instantly.

Dani, you’ve noticed, is meticulous in the way she maintains control - control of her mind, or her emotions, of her voice and her actions and her breathing. She’s always trying to stay one step ahead of her movements and her sensibility. It’s like her consciousness is on hyperdrive and her body is on pause and she can’t quite seem to idle between the two. 

She’s constantly fidgeting; with her hands, with her eyes, with the way she wags her feet when she sits. Her fingers are always picking at her shirt or tapping at her teeth or fumbling with whatever they are holding and you have to fight the urge to still them in your own. 

Her mind seems to always be going. You notice it mostly in the mornings, after she wakes up and drags herself downstairs for breakfast, the way she is looking to still the thoughts that stir in her head after a night of being shut off. As if everything that haunts her returns with the daylight.

But you attempt not to think about it, about what stirs in her head, because you don’t want to lose yourself in her, in everything that haunts her. And you know you’re starting to get to the point where that’s all you want to do is fix it, fix her.

So when she kisses you, it’s hard and it’s fast and it’s desperate and you are so willing to match her but then, 

But then she will slow down, if just for a moment, and she will let her body catch up to her heart and just melt right into you and it’s then that you feel yourself start to topple. And it’s all so _dangerous._

She lets her teeth sink in hard to the skin around your lips and you can feel the way it leaves an indent. She smooths it over with the faintest touch of the tip of her tongue and your body is set on fire. You grab at her hips, rushed and desperate, to try and steady her in place. It’s illuminating the way her body just seems to melt on the heat of your fingers.

You love to take your time with her, to carry her upstairs and lay her down and trace every part of her body with your mouth and your hands. You’d love to study every inch of her skin with your eyelashes and your tongue but you know with time comes thoughts and you don’t want to stop and think and feel. You’ve been burned by feeling and you won’t go back, you can’t go back.

So you focus on her and the way you have her now; above you, panting and wanting, and the way she kisses and the way her lips slant across yours. You focus on the faintest of moans that she hums into your mouth. You focus on her hips as you lift them a bit and hike the cotton up around her waist so that her bare thighs are wrapped around you and you very quickly focus on,

“No knickers then, Poppins?” And you can feel the way she blushes as she hides her head in the crux of your neck. You nip and bite and slide your hand between her legs and this isn’t anything major, not really, it’s just fun, but it’s quickly starting to become something that scares you.

* * *

You’ve learned a lot of little things about Dani in the last couple months.

You’ve learned that she’s always in a hurry and she doesn’t like to talk about her past much. You’ve learned that her temper with the children is far better than yours and the way she disciplines is the only time she seems really confident with her words.

You’ve learned that she likes Pinot Noir and that she actually really enjoys beans and toast despite having zero idea how to eat it properly. She has these quirky little ticks like the way she will dial most of the number for her mum back home but they always hang up before it connects. 

Your quick trysts with her begin to linger longer and longer and you can’t really tell the difference where your relationship with her behind closed doors ends and the one outside begins. And it’s becoming a habit to let your hand rest on her back when you scoot behind her in the kitchen or to tease her in a way that makes Hannah roll her eyes and Owen give you a stare. 

It’s getting comfortable and you’re starting to fear what that means because she still seems so dark and her eyes seem so scared and hollow and you know that you’d drown trying to swim through their mystery. 

You want to ask, you do. Everything in you aches to know what follows her around and keeps her just on the edge of peace. You want to know what keeps her eyes from shining and causes her to cry when she thinks nobody can see the tracks of her tears. You want to know who hurt this delicate beauty and why and what you can do to protect her from getting hurt again.

But then, sometimes, when her touch dallys just a bit too long and you catch her eyes, intent and yearning, over a cup of tea, you think that maybe what she needs protection from is you. You and your inability to trapeze these walls you’ve built around yourself since Molly left. You and your habit of leaving when it gets hard. You and your fear of loving and being loved.

And if you were smart, you’d put a stop to all this right now. You’d tell her that you think this was more than she could handle and that she’s more than you can handle and that you both are just going to end up hurting in the end. If you were smart, you’d see her at meals and you’d smile and laugh but you’d go home at the end of the day and you’d find a girl in a bar and you’d get back to your normal routine.

But then,

It’s nice to sit in peace with her. It’s nice to hear her thoughts spin around in her head like a load of fluffy towels in a dryer. 

And sure, you can turn off your feelings because that’s what you do. You can kiss her faster and fuck her harder and it’s all just simply fun.

_Just fun, Poppins._

“You know,” she breaks your silence and you look at her. It’s sunny outside and the kids are playing tag around the statues and you decided to take a wee break to sit with her while she watches them.

“Hm?” You hum to let her know it’s okay to go on, it’s okay to say whatever has just popped into her head because whenever she starts a sentence with _you know_ , you most definitely can promise that you didn’t know before.

“I always wish I had a brother.” 

“Oh yeah?”  
  
“Yeah it always seemed like so much fun. Always somebody to scheme and plot out things with. Somebody to protect you from bullies. Somebody to bitch to when your parents are being mean. I just thought it would be nice.”

You sit and think over her words, let them pendulate around your brain. You think she’s right, it would be nice to have a brother or a family or any of those things she just named. But sometimes it’s not that simple. 

“I had brothers once.”

“Oh only once?” She laughs, it’s nervous, and you can tell she’s not really sure where you are going with this by the way her voice sounds teasing and curious. 

“Yeah, once.”

And so you told her the story about Denny and Mikey and how after those few weeks in foster care you never saw them again. You told her how it felt when they ripped Mikey, screaming, out of your arms. You remember what he was wearing, what he sounded like, how many seconds it took before it was quiet and you couldn’t hear anything at all - not even your own thoughts. You told her about the homes and the men and the wicked way in which they used you.

You talk for what feels like hours but the sun hasn’t turned over and the kids are still yelling so you think it must not have been that long and you must not have given away that much. 

But the words just spill from your mouth and you aren’t entirely sure what you even say but you know when you look back at her you see that her eyes are wet and you think maybe you did.

Sne sniffs and she runs her knuckle beneath her eye to catch any 

“Sorry, that was a lot.” You laugh and you wish you could go back to that other side of the wall but she just puts her hand on your arm for a brief moment and smiles at you. It feels like a concession, something that says _later, you can tell me later_ and that scares you too. It scares you that she’s considering later. 

She clears her throat, “I hear brothers can be absolute shite.” And you laugh. You laugh because in a world that seems like this girl can do just about anything, you’re reminded that she can absolutely not do an English accent. And it’s so pleasantly endearing that it aches.

* * *

“I’m thinking of taking the kids off the property tomorrow.” She says one night while the two of you are washing up from dinner. The kids are upstairs getting ready for bed and Owen and Hannah are taking a walk around the grounds.

You offered them to clean up and you know, deep down, it was to have some time alone with Dani.

“Oh is that so?” You lift your eyebrow and crinkle your lip as she hands you over a plate to dry.

“Yeah I just think, I dunno, I think it might help a little. Miles has just been so,” her words trail off as she searches her mind for the proper one.

“So much of a twat.” You finish, only it was meant to be more to yourself than anything but the look she shoots you tells you it wasn’t.

“What is your issue with that kid, anyway?” She hands you another plate.

“Don’t have a problem with him.” You frown but it’s a lie and her eyes level with you and you sigh. “He loves to take the piss outta me. Does it on purpose, he does. You know just the other day I caught him messin’ about in my garden again.” She nods, you’ve told her this already.

“He’s taking to calling me Darling, d’ya know that? Like I’m anybody’s darling.” You mumble under your breath and you can see her smile out of the corner of your eye. “I don’t like it.” 

“I think he’s just going through some growing pains.” She hands you another plate.

“If by growing pains you mean being an absolute pain in my--” there’s a shuffling behind you and then a throat clears.

“Miss Clayton?”

Dani quickly dries her hands off from the soapy water and turns to face him.

“Yes, Miles.” She looks him over once, twice. “You are supposed to be in bed.”

“I-I-I know.” He looks at you and you wonder how long he had been standing there before you heard him. “But Flora said she needs you upstairs right away.”

Dani looks at you and you nod your head telling her you have whatever it is down here that’s needed to have before she disappears around the corner. Miles remains rooted in his spot as you turn the water back on to continue washing up. 

“I don’t mean to take this piss out of you, Jamie.” He says as he moves towards you slowly. The hair on the back of your neck stands as his voice drops. “It’s just such a fun game, to see how far I can push you before you positively crack.”

You turn your head to him and squint your eyes, just to make sure you’re hearing him right.

“But don’t worry.” He lowers his voice and stuffs his hand in his pocket. “I won’t tell anybody about you and the American.”

Before you have a chance to respond he’s backing away and out of the kitchen and you don’t understand what he meant by that. All you know is that something is wrong with Miles and you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.

* * *

It’s a Tuesday night in the fall when Owen gets you and Dani out to the one pub in Bly. Hannah insisted that the three of you go and have an evening to enjoy without the children and that she would be happy to watch them.

It is your birthday after all. 

Dani had asked you last week if she could do anything for it, for you, and it felt so much like a commitment that you backed away and snapped and you regret that now because it’s been a week and her touches haven’t lingered and her kisses haven’t slowed and you wonder if you’ve officially ruined the best thing that’s happened to you before you even knew it.

_“A little birdy told me somebody is turning the big 3-0 next week.” She’s smiling at you like there’s a hanger in her mouth and you’re not sure if it’s because you just made her come or because she just really likes birthdays._

_“A little birdie may want to mind her own business.” And Hannah really does like to pretend she’s above gossip but you know this was calculated._

_Dani slides over to you at the sink and she grabs at your side quickly in a way that feels teasing but it also feels like it has consequences._

_“Well,” she lets the words drag off her tongue and you have to look over to her while you turn the water off and reach for her shirt to dry your hands. She rolls her eyes._

_“What can I get for you?” And maybe this is an American thing or a Dani thing to be so excited about a birthday but you’ve never been one to celebrate another year passing in a mundane world._

_“I don’t need anything, Poppins.” You back away a step from her to take her out of your orbit but when she follows and grabs on to the hem of your shirt you suddenly feel like the walls are closing in._

_Because this all just feels so expected and so routine and you don’t know when birthdays and dinners and thinking of the other in your spare time became your routine but you’ve slipped into this rabbit hole and if you aren’t careful you’ll start to find yourself comfortable there._

_She pouts and her lip is plump from being bitten and sucked and you can’t tear your eyes away when she lets out a ‘hmph’ in protest_

_“You don’t want anything? Nothing at all.” Her hand is now swinging back and forth and her knuckles are rubbing your bare stomach under your shirt and it’s distracting in a way it shouldn’t be. Not when you just had her inside you not 5 minutes before and you shouldn’t want more._

_“I don’t want anything.” And you have to keep telling yourself that’s what you mean. You don’t want anything that you don’t already have. You’ve already wanted too much._

_“You know I have to get you something, Jamie. If I didn’t then I would just be a horrible--”_

_“Friend.” You cut her off because you are pretty sure that’s what she was going to say but if she didn’t then you don’t know what you would have done. You don’t know what you would have agreed to, not with the way she’s looking at you right now._

_“Right, friend.”_

_She furrows her eyebrows at you and you can tell she’s trying to read what’s behind your eyes and you don’t like that she can read you already, so quickly, so accurately. You don’t like being this available and you know you’re playing this mean game of seesaw with how you open up and close down to her but you can’t help it._

_You can’t help fear. Not when you fear she’s so much that you couldn’t trust yourself to have._

_“You’re being stubborn.” At her words you step back out of her reach and you watch her cross her arms across her chest._ _  
_   
“And you’re being clingy.” You scoff and turn around and you think maybe it was the wrong thing to say when there’s just silence meeting your back. It’s still, her energy is mute, and nothing has ever been still in her presence. 

_“Alright.”_

_“Wait, Dani.”_

_“Happy birthday, Jamie.” And she’s gone and all you’re left with is silence and nothing and you can’t figure out where you went wrong but you think this is what you deserve._

Owen, bless the poor bastard, is none the wiser to the change in your dynamic in the last handful of days so he grabs the three shots from the bar and hands them to you both. Her smile is half-assed and you know that some of the darkness that’s in it now is because of you.

“To finally being an adult.” He says and clinks the both of you and you laugh because you’re not sure if you’ll ever really be an adult.

“Cheers, mate.” You throw the drink back and you scowl at the foul taste of what you can only imagine is rubbing alcohol mixed with water and you don’t know if you’ll make it through the night without puking.

You chance a look at Dani and you wish you could tell her that you’re sorry but you never really learned that word when you were on your own. 

“So, Miss Clayton,” Owen turns his attention to her when he catches you looking, “You’ve now been at Bly for six whole months. I think we can officially consider you one of us. So congratulations and condolences.”

She laughs and it’s melodic and he squints at her in a way that’s damn charming and you think Owen may be the key. He clinks his glass, a regular pint, with her and you take a breath.

“So, what do I do as one of you then?” She looks to him and then to you as if asking permission to break the tension.

“Learn how to make tea.” You say and it’s normal and it feels like the air has been thinned a bit with the way she looks at you and the corners of her mouth pull up to the side and you think, maybe it will all be fine.

But then, somehow, later, much later, you find yourself five beers into the night and alone with Owen. Dani has disappeared and you’re far too drunk to realize she was gone. Panic begins to set in because she’s so small and so inculpable that you worry that somebody could snatch her up and,

Snatch her away.

So when you hear her laugh, high pitched and throaty like she does when Owen makes a bad pun or when Flora saying something exceedingly charming, it’s easy to find her in the crowd. She’s always felt like a magnet.

But when you look up and you see her leaning in to a girl with tight jeans and dark hair and let out that laugh again, you feel yourself get nauseous again and you think maybe your magnet is twisting and repelling and falling away. The way your gut turns upside down at the image of it all, like she forgot about you and forgot about the way you hold her and the way you kiss her and that maybe somebody can hold her better. And maybe somebody could, you think. Maybe somebody could protect her better than you have for these past six months because all you’ve done is put her through a blender. 

And her eyes are too expressive and they are too haunted for you to pretend that at least some of it doesn’t come from you when you tell her you can’t stay the night. You’ve been naive to think that eventually somebody wouldn’t see her and want her. You’ve been selfish. And this all hits you because of that one stupid laugh and this one stupid girl who is touching Dani’s hand and,

Owen must catch you looking and you really should have given him more credit because when he follows your eyes he sighs and taps you on the shoulder and says,

“I think it’s time I get Dani and we all go home, then?”

And you should just nod and you should just let it all go but for some reason the sorrow has turned into anger and you know there’s a difference between love and possession but right now all you want to do is prove that you can be better than this Joan Jett look-alike.

“I’ll get her.” You say and you really shouldn’t. It’s confusing and it’s messy and you have no right but,

You find yourself at her side in seconds and you look to the girl who is trying to take Dani away from you and you let your lip snarl in her direction for just a moment before you lean in between them and into Dani’s ear. 

“Poppins, you alright?” And it’s silly really because of course she’s alright. But you aren't.

But she’s drunk, you can tell, because she just sways into you and you have to laugh a bit at the way this woman can’t hold her liquor. 

“Jamie.” She slurs and she pulls back and smiles at you. “I want you to meet Julie.” And then she’s laughing and you are sure it’s because your name rhymes with this… heathen.

“Charmed, I’m sure.” You say without looking back at the girl and then you’re taking Dani’s hand in your own and you’re leading her back to Owen and nodding to the door.

It’s only once you’re outside and the lights from the street hit your eyes that you realize that none of you are fit to drive and you take your keys out of your pocket and open the door beside the bar to a set of stairs that lead to your flat. 

Getting the two of them both inside is surprisingly easy considering Owen can barely stand and is rattling off puns like it’s his only purpose in life. 

“Liquor may not solve all your problems, but it’s worth a shot.”

And,

“I think I’ve gone past the pint of no return.”

Or,

“Jamie you need to get into the birthday spirits!”

And Dani is laughing at each one of them and it’s hard to be annoyed with them because Dani’s hand is still locked in yours and you can’t help but feel like you’ve won.

You finally get Owen situated on the couch with a blanket and a pillow and he’s out in a minute, snoring and wheezing and you know he won’t stir until morning. 

But then Dani is looking up at you with expectant eyes and you have never spent the night beside her and it still feels dangerous but she’s pulling at your fingers and you really want to give in. So you do.

“Alright, let’s get you to bed, Poppins.” And she smiles and you can’t help but think that you’ll have to reckon with this decision later.

And you’ll have to reckon with not saying no when she strips down completely naked and expecting and climbs into your bed and puts her hand over your mouth and says,

“Let me give you your present.”

Because despite telling yourself for months that she’s _not_ yours, not in name and not in responsibility, you can’t help but feel like she tastes like yours when she leans into you and covers your mouth with hers and you can taste everything the both of you have been afraid to say.

She certainly sounds like yours later when she’s moaning your name lightly into your ear and you have to put two fingers into her mouth to keep her from waking up Owen.

And she certainly feels like yours when her hand is gripping lightly on your neck while her tongue is between your legs and you can’t help but realize she holds your breath completely in your hands.

And while you know that she’s drunk and she’s letting herself be more vulnerable than usual in a way that she likely won’t remember tomorrow, it’s both the most terrifying and wonderful gift you’ve ever been given. 

And you don’t know what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jamie is just a confused little green bean.
> 
> I know it's easy to get frustrated with her but she's gonna figure it out. Just not yet.


	7. promise me just one more night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, remember when I said the rules of the ghosts were going to change in this story? Okay cool. Now here's 7000 words.

After the night in your flat, things have been different. 

You can’t say it’s a bad type of different, entirely. It’s just different. Touches seem to hold more power, more meaning, and they seem to give away more of what you’ve fought to keep inside. Your eyes seem to find her, always, even when you aren’t looking. Hannah and Owen seem to have some sort of inclination as to what’s going on, their nightly walks get longer and they offer to watch the kids just a little more frequently, but nobody ever mentions it explicitly. 

You haven’t thought about being with anybody else in months. You haven’t needed to, not when she’s been able to captivate you in ways that have your attention constantly on how you can push her next, how you can please her more. 

She seems to know you now, in ways that nobody has ever cared to learn. She knows your mind, and your actions, and your body. She knows that when you dig your nails into her back that you don’t want anything other than to look her in the eyes while you come. She knows that when you pull on the hair at the base of her head that you want her tongue. She knows how to bring you right to the edge and hold you there until you dig your heel into her shoulder and then she knows it’s time.

You know her, too. You know she likes it when you can’t waste your time undressing her and instead you just move fabric to the side before taking her entirely. You know that when she drags her tongue along your lip that she wants it slow and when she bites at your chin, she wants it fast. You know that she loves the thrill of getting caught, though she’d never actually say it. You know that she likes the feeling of your hand around her neck, just lightly, just there, just enough to surrender control. 

But it’s about so much more than just what you both _like._ She knows what you need. And that’s what terrifying because it’s starting to feel like what you need is,

_Her._

She knows that when you skip breakfast in the morning, it’s because you need your space. You find that there are days when it all seems like too much - that being in this bubble with her and the kids and Hannah and Owen feels like too much. You feel like you have too many people counting on you and you couldn’t bear the thought of letting them down, or worse.

You were familiar with letting women down, with not meeting their expectations of you. There hadn’t been many dates between Molly and Dani, but there had been many girls. Many girls who would come and then they would go. You didn’t mind it, never getting to know them. But every now and then when your paths would overlap, you’d find the disappointment in their eyes or the acid in their mouths directed at you, and it was to be expected. 

But Dani knew when to leave you be. And, when you were ready, she knew how to let you come back. 

She knows your laughs; which ones mean you find something entirely hilarious, which ones mean you are trying to deflect off something serious, and which are just trying to get a laugh out of her. You’d decided, a while ago, that hearing her laugh was even better than hearing her breathy and panting. You decided, a while ago, that your job was to never let her smile leave her face.

She wasn’t yours, not really, not at all, but it was getting hard to see how you weren’t hers.

But, things felt different lately.

And it’s entirely your fault.

Once you started noticing that she was noticing these things too, you started to pull away. It was instinctual, really, and that was the worst part. You couldn’t describe what it was - just that it was the same as the sensation of when you start to think so hard about breathing and then all of a sudden it’s as if you can’t get the air into your lungs. Being with her was so natural, like breathing, but the moment you started thinking about being with her, about what being with her meant, all of a sudden it became laboured and you were suffocating in your own mind.

It started slowly. A dismissal here, a comment there. You weren’t kissing her like you should and you weren’t holding her like you wanted. You were feeling less and less like yourself and she was falling further and further away while you grasped at whatever thread was closest to keep her nearby.

And now, it’s weeks later and things are off and you can’t seem to fix it. You can’t seem to get out of your own path to fix the way that you always feel like you’re just to the side of where you want to be and just behind where you should be.

It starts and ends with Dani but continues with everything else that falls in between.

Your truck breaks down on a Thursday. It’s where everything goes wrong and the unraveling goes from slowly untangling your mess, her mess, everyone's mess, to you laying hapless in a pile on the floor.

* * *

_Thursday, 7 December_

The fireplace is lit in the kitchen when you drag your tired feet back into the house. It’s quiet, it’s late, it’s dim and you smile when you’re greeted by the way Dani fiddles with the tea kettle over the stove. It’s endearing the way she absolutely cannot seem to figure out such a simple beverage.

“Don’t touch that.” You say, alerting her to your presence. 

Her smile burns your skin with the way it lights up.

“Hey.” It softens as you step forward closer to her. “I--I thought you went home?” Her eyes crinkle and her head tilts and you’re glad the kids are upstairs because you don’t think you’ll be able to keep your hands away from her as you get closer. 

“I was trying to but I thought to myself, I bet Poppin’s could use a hand with her nightly brew.” You smirk at her and open your arms and she leans into your space while you wrap your hands around her waist.

It feels so intimate to be around her like this, intimate in a way you haven’t really prepared for but it just snuck up on you and one day… here you were. Here she was. 

And no, like you’ve said, she’s not yours. But the lines are certainly starting to blur and if you squint, you can’t see them at all. Sometimes you aren’t sure if you even want to.

She kisses you quickly and backs out of your arms, back to the stove.

“Truck won’t start. I’ll have to have a look at it in the sunlight.” She looks over her shoulder at you as she takes the kettle off the stove and places it on the counter. You bump her hip and motion for her to sit. She can’t make tea for fuck all.

“Oh--oh. So, you’re staying here then?” Her voice sounds hopeful and you know what that means but you have to maintain some lines, the lines that are still there even when you squint.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa again if you don’t mind.” And you watch how her face falls, just slightly, while her mouth rounds into an ‘o’ and her left eye narrows towards you. She’s processing.

“You know,” and you do know, you know exactly, “You _can_ stay in my room one of these nights. You don’t always have to sleep down here.”

You nod because she knows and you know that you won’t. You never do.

“The kids won’t be up until I get them up anyway and you start your rounds early enough and I just--”

“Poppins,” you smile and she shuts her mouth “it’s not about the kids.” And it wasn’t, it really wasn’t.

She sighs, a deep sigh, and you hate that you can’t give her this thing she wants, not yet. You listen as her feet shuffle and then stop and you hear her plop down in a chair.

You fix her tea, light milk and no sugar, just how she likes it. You fix your own, black for tonight, unusual for you but you want to feel the way the bitter taste bites at your tongue. You carry both to the table and sit down at the head with her on your right. 

She smiles at you over the rim of her cup, you find it easy to sit in this silence and just take her in. Take in the way her eyes are still dark, but they are lightening every day. Take in the way her smile makes you forget about wanting to preserve what little self control you still have and just give it over to her.

Take in the way that you’re starting to think you’ve only got two options; leave her or love her. And they both equally terrify you. Because the consequences of one are greater than the other and you aren’t sure there’s a way you can explain that.

“I--I bought a ring once.” You start, and she looks up at you with quizzical eyes as she leans forward to rest her chin on her hand. Her eyes are open and they are saying _I’m here, I’m listening._

“It was stupid because it’s not like we could get married anyway but I did, I bought a ring.” Your eyes are trained on the way the tea slaps against the side of the cup as you spin it around and around. Around and around.

“Alright, here we go then. I met Molly when I was nineteen. After Mikey and the-- after I got sent up to serve a couple years, I told you about that already,” she nods and you nod and, “right, well, after I had to go to a rehabilitation center during my probation as a condition of my release. I had been off everything, clean ya know, for a good bit, yeah? But it was just part of it.”

Her feet lift off the ground and she tucks her toes under your thighs. It grounds you.

“Molly was a few years older than me. She was my roommate there and I guess, really, sort of my everything for a while. She got me on the right track and I got her on her way too, I guess.”

“I had never felt that way about anybody, ever. I think it was just… like it was all at once. I didn’t have anybody when I was growing up, and I didn’t have anybody when I went away and then there was this person, this woman, who wanted me and it was just so much.”

“But I wrecked it. I got too involved in my own demons and I abandoned her, really.” You look up and Dani is looking at you and her eyes are soft and you want to keep going because you think that maybe this key will unlock some door, any door, that will get you back to yourself.

“Her mom died and I didn’t understand because I never really had a mom. She kept begging me to be there and I was so selfish because I was so young and-- I just sort of thought that we couldn’t be happy if there was sadness in our life.”

You feel her toes curl underneath you and you focus on how you can feel it, can feel her.

“So she started leaning on my best friend, Claire.” You hear Dani make a noise that sort of resembles a gasp but mostly just resembles recognition. Like she knows where this is going and she isn’t going to make you say it. Not when the tears are starting to form in your eyes.

“I should have been there for her--”

“Hey,” her voice is raspy and charged, “everyone makes mistakes. Especially when you’re in love.”

“But the thing is, Poppins, I dunno that I ever was in love.” You look up at her and her eyes are captivating and you decide that no, it wasn’t love with Molly. It couldn’t have been. “Love doesn’t feel like that.”

She nods and you both go back to silence and this time it isn’t as easy. It’s buzzed and it’s heavy and you know there are things that you have left you want to say and there are things she wants to ask but it feels like you don’t have the answers. This was just a piece, and there’s so much more.

Because the truth is, you’re damaged, partial, unwhole. And not in the way you want people to pity you and not in the way that you want to be fixed, but in the way that it’s something you’ll have to deal with for the rest of your life. You’ll have to deal with your fear of trusting others and freely giving your heart to somebody who has the ability to shatter it in their hands. You have to deal with risking their hearts, too.

And you’re scared because this girl, with the darkness and the hollow eyes and the mysterious past, doesn't deserve to be damaged by you anymore than she already is. She needs somebody to put her back together, not somebody to step on the shards. 

You think everyone is damaged in some way. You think Owen is damaged by the attachment he has to his mother. You think Hannah is damaged by her own self doubt. You think Rebecca was damaged by her inability to walk away from somebody who was toxic. And Peter, well, he was the one holding the hammer.

Everyone has ghosts. And every ghost has ghosts. And at the end of the day, it’s about whose ghost you can handle and who can handle yours. It’s about walking with the ghost and not just hiding them. But your ghost feels like it’s taking over you and you aren’t sure that you want to bring her into this... mess that you’ve created.

So when she gently pulls her feet away and puts them back on the ground, stands, and holds out her hand to you, you have to wonder if she wants to handle your ghosts.

“Come on. Let me put you to bed.”

And it feels like such a big commitment and you aren’t ready for that. You haven’t decided.

“I don’t want to break you, too.” It’s whispered into the air and it lingers between you both like this ugly apparition, this hollow ghost.

But then, she kneels down and puts her hands on the sides of your neck and she just seems so sure when she says,

“Stop thinking and just be here. Just you and me. Right now.” 

You look up at her and you want to say no, you want to say you can’t, but you look at those eyes and it feels like all you can think so say is,

“One day at a time, then?”

And she hesitates because you think that maybe it’s a lot to ask her, to make it so inconsequential, but it’s better than _just friends, Poppins_ and it’s what you can do right now.

And if she doesn’t ask for more, maybe that will be enough.

* * *

_Friday, 8 December_

It’s absolutely frigid outside and you think you must be out of your bloody mind for standing out here and pulling vines off the side of the house. 

You’re even more out of your mind that you have the kids helping you. But Dani stomped her foot and told you to _put them to work, Jamie_ and you couldn’t resist the way her tone wasn’t really a question but more of a demand and the way it sent a chill down your neck.

Hannah and Dani want to start decorating for Christmas and while you’ve never been one to label yourself a celebrator of the day, something about this year has you feeling just a little happier than usual. So you took the kids outside and put them to work bagging up all the brush that you threw to the ground from the top of your ladder.

They had done this job before, it was the one thing you trusted them with when it came to the garden, and they got to work on it pretty quickly.

Well, that is to say, Flora did. 

Miles stood, with his hands in his pocket, and watched you with a narrow eye and a judging smirk. You could feel his eyes on you while you stood a dozen feet above, hovering on top of the ladder, perched against the side of the brick. 

“Miles!” You hear Flora yell from below. “You aren’t helping.”

Miles says nothing in return, just the resounding click of the lighter in his hand echoing through the still, cold fog. Flora humphs and the bag rustles as she stuffs more vines inside.

“This is stupid.” He kicks at the bag and it topples it over. 

“Miss Jamie, he’s being dreadful.” You can hear Flora stomp her feet and you wished you had just told Dani no.

“Miles, stop being dreadful.” You mumble under your own breath, your head already hurting from their shrill voices and the piercing bite of the wind on your cheeks.

“I’m going to the lake.” He announces and you have half a mind to just fucking let him.

“Miles, stop it!” Flora huffs and Miles laughs at his sister’s vexation. He kicks at the bag again and the contents pour out.

This boy, you think, hasn’t been the same since Rebecca died. He was on the brink of puberty and he had been through a mountain of a life thus far but he had always been a sweet boy. Now, he was nothing but a petulant brat who you’d love to send right to boarding school.

You look down and he’s still just glaring up at you. “Oi, boy, help your sister.” 

His lips pull up in a devilish manner, “and if I don’t?”

You cock your head at the challenge. You know most, including Dani, had been unwilling to give Miles any sort of punishment other than an early night to bed or a toy or two taken away. But you weren’t them and this wouldn’t fly. Not with you. And he knew it too.

So when he slowly walked toward the ladder you know what he was about to do. You knew it before you could act and all of a sudden you were grasping at anything you could to delay the fact that you were falling. You were falling and it was all because that absolute shit of a child had pulled the ladder out from under you. 

And then,

You hit the ground with a thud and all you could register was how absolutely cold you were. Like an ice pack had just burst inside your body and the beads were slowly spreading through every inch of your body. 

And then,

Dani is hovering over you with worry in her eyes and a panic in her voice while she’s got a hand on your shoulder and she’s shaking and shaking and shaking and,

“Christ, you’ll kill me sooner if you just throw me off that ladder again.” You blink up at her and you can see the tears that are pooling in the corners of her eyes and you can see some color returning to her face.

“Uh---uh you really, um, you took quite a spill there, ya know?” Her laughter is timid and you know she’s trying to brush off whatever she was feeling in the seconds before your eyes opened.

You take her in, she looks terrified and - she’s got no jacket, no shoes, as if she ran straight out from her bedroom when she heard the noise. 

“I think I’m going to live.” 

“Are you sure?” She’s still hovering over you and her hair is falling in a curtain around your face as you look back up into the stormy ocean of her eyes.

“I certainly hope so.” 

You turn your head to the side and take in the dirt and the gravel and you’re starting to get your bearings about you again. The toppled bag, the discarded ladder, the scrapes on your hands from bracing for the fall. Your knees hurt and your wrists feel a bit jammed up but for the most part nothing feels like it’s broken.

“Where is that little knob?”

“I sent him inside. Up--uh--up to his room.” She moves her head quickly back over her shoulder and the movement is dizzying. “I just don’t know what to do with him anymore.”

“I’dunno but can you help me sit up? Rocks are a bit of a sore on my back.” Dani nods and she’s got a hand behind your head and another on your arm as she lift you up into a sitting position. The blood immediately rushes into the rest of your body.

“Are you okay? I should have asked you that before but, uh, are you okay? Did you hit your head? Is it your legs? Wiggle your toes for me.” She’s pulling on your pant leg and you can feel the way the cold air rushes up beneath it. 

“Yeah, yeah, I can still feel all my limbs.” You look at her for a second, hard, watch the way she chews on your words, teetering on her heels and leaning into your space. You know she wants to kiss you, you can feel the pull of her lips and she starts moving closer until, “Who are you though?”

Her body whips back and her eyes go wide as she looks over every inch of your body as if looking to see where your sense leaked and how she could patch it up quickly. She’s inspecting and grabbing and holding whatever she can find, just to see what she was missing. You can’t hold in the way your breath escapes your lungs in a guffaw the second she pulls your head towards her to look at the back of your skull.

“Poppins,” you say and you smile and her body deflates before a scowl takes over her face. “I’m fine, I promise ya.”

The smack in your arm is hard but it’s warm and it’s the only warm thing you’ve felt all day.

“Okay well let’s get you inside. I’ll make some tea.” She’s standing now and holding out her hand but all you can focus on is that kid and how he’s not himself, not even a little.

“Why don’t you just push me off the ladder again, instead.”

* * *

_Saturday, 9 December_

Your truck needs a new starter, you discover, and you can’t get back in town to get the part until Monday. And maybe it’s because of Dani or maybe it’s because of the cold or maybe it’s because of the full moon but you weren’t really planning on leaving anyway.

You lost yourself the last two nights and spent your sleep tucked in next to Dani in her bed, under her arm, and it felt so comfortable and so warm and terrifying. You woke up more times than you could count, just to check and make sure she was there, that she was real and breathing and next to you. And she was and you would tuck your head back on her shoulder and let dreams of what could be take you away.

It all felt so right and comfortable and _dangerous._

And when she looks at you over a glass of wine and a blazing fire with these eyes begging you to join her for a third night, you nearly say yes. You nearly take her upstairs and rip her clothes off so that she can rip you apart and keep the pieces. But it’s a full moon and you can’t and so when she holds out her hand you give her a sad smile and a,

“Not tonight, Poppins.” 

You feel her stand from the couch and step into the space in front of you. So much is said in her eyes that you don’t need it said on her lips. It’s saying _I understand_ and _don’t run_ and _promise me_ and you pull on her hand until she moves closer to you, closer to convincing you. She leans down and tenderly brushes the hair out of your face and kisses your softly, slowly, and when she pulls back and you open your eyes, you see the way the moon cascades through the curtains and you swallow down your fear.

“Goodnight.” Her fingers tangle in yours and she tugs just slightly. You smile. “Just, goodnight.”

And she’s gone, further into the house and further into the safe comfort of her warm bed that you so long to be in.

It’s late and you’re alone now, with only your thoughts and the harsh tick of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. You watch it move slowly, count the _clack clack clack_ as it gets closer and closer. You listen for creaks above you, confident when it remains still that Flora is watching and counting too. And you wait. 

You wait for Viola. Because soon, she’ll come. Just like she does once a month, right at midnight, on the first night of a full moon; she comes.

The first few times you met her it terrified you, the way she was quiet and in control and commanded the air and the life around her. They way she wrapped into the things that breathe and survive, even though she had ceased to do either centuries ago. She felt like death wandering and lurking and and raging through every molecule in the air and every beam of light in the dark.

You were introduced to her by accident, really, right after the Wingraves had passed. It had only been a few weeks and you and Owen and Hannah had made a pact to watch over the children. It was your turn, your night, to keep an eye on them and like all of those nights, you were comforted to watch the way their breathing was steady and even after a night of tears and memories smacked them with brutal force. And so you sat and you watched them sleep until you heard the stairs twist and a dark energy washed over you.

You shake your head because you don’t like to think of that first time. You don’t like to think of the way it came and the way it turned and the way it left you in the aftermath.

You focus on your duty now, which was to protect this home and the people inside it who had slowly worked their way inside your heart and embedded themselves into your picture of forever. You sat by the door and you waited for the waking and the walking. You kept her from getting to them because they were so much, so valuable, too important to risk. Those two children, and now this beautifully miraculous woman that you couldn’t and wouldn’t...

No, you didn’t know what that future looked like and you didn’t know if it would ever get that far but here, now, at midnight on the first night of the full moon, was as good a time as any to picture it.

All while you wait for this beast to show her soul to you again.

* * *

_Sunday 10 December_

Sunday is perfect. 

Despite your lack of sleep in the night, you start the day feeling emboldened and brave. 

You make pancakes and tea, properly of course, and coffee for Dani, reluctantly. It’s fresh when the kids run downstairs and Dani follows in moments later.

It’s the way it hits you when she walks in, flanked by the gleeful cheers of the children on a cold winter morning, that you don’t know how you can walk away from this but you think you must.

You think you must keep her out of your orbit, out of the gravitational pull to darkness, and keep her steadily treading in her own secrets. You think it’s better that you cut it off now and then it won’t be so hard later. You think, but you know you’re already far past wrong.

So when she steps up to you, puts her hand on your arm, and reaches for the tea instead of the coffee with a cheeky, “you Brits and your tea” you think that maybe you can put it all off for one more day.

* * *

It’s just after lunch and the kids are out searching the woods for thin sticks at the behest of Dani who still hasn’t really fully explained what these _some’more_ things are. You heard something about loose branches and chocolate but you don’t really understand how those two things can be related so you just brush it off for another one of her American oddities. 

Miles seems to be Miles today. He’s been gentle and kind and you wish he was like this more often. He’s been holding Flora’s hand when they run across the lawn and he’s been suggesting fun games for the four of you to play.

You’ve done tag, Flora won. You’ve done hide n’ seek which, well, Miles technically won, but you felt like the winner when Dani used a few spare moments of the children tucked away in the house to pull you into a linen closet and kiss a trail down the side of your neck.

You definitely won when that turned into pinning her quickly against the door and, with a smirk on your face and a hand between her legs and a moan in your ear. It was only a few minutes and that was all you needed.

And now the kids are out searching and you’re curled up in a chair with a book in your lap when she steps in the room and plucks it out of your hand and sliding into your lap. 

“They’ll be back soon.” You whisper in her hair as she tucks into your neck, playing with the fingers on your hand that lands on her knee. 

She hums. “I know, but I just figured I would get a few more minutes of you before...” 

Her words trail to and end and you know what she means. Before this spell of now is broken. Before you go back to reality and go back to your walls and your fears. You want a few more minutes of this too, _before before before._

* * *

  
The way the kids are howling with laughter as they chase each other around the statues is grounding. It’s peaceful in a way that you can close your eyes and let their youthful joy surround you completely and it feels easy to breathe. It’s dark and it’s frigid and the way the fire burns and crackles in front of you is warm and steadying.

Dani suggested making an early supper, Hannah and Owen having the day off, and the two of you had your best crack at a roast but it really ended up being a burnt shoe of a meal and all four of you just ended up stuffing your faces with what was left in the refrigerator.

She insisted on showing the kids how to roast marshmallows on the fire and you thought it was pretty crude to eat off an actual stick from the woods but it lit up her face and the kids seemed delighted by the way the fluffy sugar stuck to their faces and their hands. 

You take a sip of wine and you look over to Dani who you find is already looking back to you.

“Today was a good day.” She smiles at you and you think, yeah, it was, and you think that yeah, you could do this most days. You could be with her in this easy peaceful silence. But nothing really is easy and peaceful, is it? Nothing can ever truly be that simple.

“No.” You say and her eyes startle at your defiance. “Today was a great day, Poppins.”

She rolls her eyes in that way that says she hates you but you think that maybe hate means love and you think that scares you.

The fire continues to crackle and the marshmallows are long gone but there’s still chocolate on her nose and you reach over to wipe it off. Her smile feels like home and you have to remind yourself again that tonight is fleeting, and the dew of the peace that’s settled in you now will burn off in the morning sun.

You watch her, the way she watches you. Her eyes look peaceful tonight, not as dark and shadowy as they normally do in the daylight. The way the light flickers in them is mesmerizing and you want to watch the fire in her eyes for as long as they remain open.

And you think, you need to tell her. You need to tell her everything but at the same time you want her burdened with nothing. 

“I’m thinking of going back home for Christmas.” She says and you can see the gears turning in her head.

“Oh-- that’s… oh.” And you’re little taken back because you’ve been around her not for over six months and you’ve heard little to nothing about her family or where she’s from other than that she was once engaged and that she was from Iowa.

“Just for the week, maybe. Maybe two. I just think I should face them.” She looks over and her eyes don’t look calm anymore. They look weathered and deep and fearful. “I’ve been here almost a year now, can you believe that? A whole year. And I probably need to-- I probably need to go see them.” She nods her head, trying to convince herself.

“I’m sure they would love to see you.” You offer, hoping that maybe it’s what she needs.

“I don’t know that they will.” Her laugh is self deprecating and it breaks you. “I didn’t leave there… it wasn’t a good thing I left.”  
  
“People hardly leave good things, Dani.” You say and the words taste like bile and lies because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t help but think you are going to _have_ to leave.

She looks into your eyes and she latches. “I was engaged. I--I told you that already.” You shift in your seat so your body is facing her and you nod. “Well, he, um, he died. Right before I left. I mean, that’s to say, I--I left right after he died. I ran.”

You sit up because, well, that’s not really what you expected. 

“I had just told him that, um, I--I had sort of told him that I was,” she motions to you and you fight off an inappropriate chuckle because you know what she’s trying to say but the way she is pointing to you as if to say _you, you’re my sexuality_ is just - she’s just. 

“Anyway, I had just told him and, and he died.” 

“Fuck.” You say first and then you try something softer, something smoother. “You know that’s not your fault, right?”

“No, I know it is. I do. But sometimes, it’s just so loud, you know?”

“I don’t know how to explain-- it’s like. You know when you were young and you would play with, whoever, kids in the neighborhood let’s say, and everyone would yell about something all at the same time. You couldn’t really make out the words, just feelings. Like you could hear how everyone just _felt_ in that moment, how they felt joy or they felt frustration, or they felt pain or they felt peace. You could hear everybody’s individual energy. That’s how being home for me felt. I could hear everyone’s energy and it was all just so… loud.”

“And from the moment Eddy died, I could hear it all. I could hear his pain and I could hear his mom’s hollow heart beating. I could hear my own mother’s disappointment. Everything just felt so loud. Like the loss is screaming at me and I can just hear the weight of all this guilt and it builds and it builds and it’s just _so loud.”_

She looks up at you with wet eyes and your chest seizes because you know you have to tell her. You feel that noise every moment that you don’t.

“But with you,” and you almost don’t want her to say it, because it hurts and it’s dangerous, “But with you, it’s quiet.”

You exhale and it shakes the way it leaves your lungs. It shakes and it burns and you feel it all. You want to take this weight from her and carry it yourself. You want to fix it. You can fix it.

“It was strange, the night we met. I thought you were captivating in a way that was cocky and aloof. You were trying to show off and for some reason I wanted you to. That night I didn’t hear anything, any of those nagging thoughts swirling in my head. I thought, maybe it was the alcohol and the buzz and the fact that you are just… Jamie, you have this insane way of lighting my body on fire.” You blush and shift again because something heavy settles in your chest.

“It was my first time with a woman, did you know that?” She asks and you smile because no, you didn’t, not explicitly, but you had a feeling.

“Coulda fooled me.” You smile and you wish she was closer. Flora and Miles laugh in the distance and you don’t know how you lost track of them being outside with you both.

“I had waited my entire life for you. And not you in a grand sense, but actually _you_ . I just didn’t know it yet.” And you want her to stop because it’s wonderful and it’s what you want but you can’t give this to her. You just simply _can’t._

“Dani--” and you don’t want this to end, it’s the last thing you wan’t. Because you think you’ve waited your entire life for her too but, _but_ ,

“I know. I know you don’t think you can but, Jamie, we already _are._ ”

“There’s so much I still need to tell you.” And there is and you can’t in good conscience go full steam ahead into this without her knowing it all, without you deciding. 

She stands and she calls for the kids and when they come running she sends them inside. You listen to their feet crunch on the gravel all the way back to the house. You listen until it’s quiet. You listen until all you can hear is your own heart beating in your chest because you already decided once but you think it was the wrong decision. You think you’ve spent months making the wrong decisions and you need to make the right one. 

Her hand lowers to you and runs through your hair, pulling slightly when she gets to the base so that you look up at her. Her eyes are still, quiet, and you realize that all this time you had been seeing the noise.

“Tell me tomorrow. And then decide.” And you know what she means, decide if you can do this, or decide if you’re going to walk away.

And you want to think it’s the hardest decision you’ll ever make, but that’s only because your heart and your head have made two separate choices and they made them long ago.

You want to give her every night, but what do you do on the nights when you are not you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed me love and attention. But mostly, I hope you enjoyed this and it's gonna get a little angsty here for a chapter or two but just hang on.
> 
> And before you ask, I probably won't tell you ;) you know just as much about what's going on as Jamie wants you to know right now.


	8. what in the world can make a brown eyed girl turn blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I warned you. *ducks from plate*
> 
> This isn't edited, I just wanted to get it out there before you all forgot about meeeee

It’s quiet in the house, it normally is, but today the quiet feels deafening because it’s left you haunted by your own thoughts.

You hear the white noise of the snow falling quietly, uncharacteristically, onto the windows. It sticks for just a fleeting moment before it melts, disappears into the emptiness. And you watch it, you let the way each individual pattern tattoos the glass and then fade away just as quickly burn into your eyes and your soul and it’s hard not to feel like you are just like these snowflakes.

Fading. Fading away into nothing. Fading away into yourself. Your own unique print being left behind and then forgotten. Forgotten quickly, swiftly, forever.

Dani left three days ago and you’ve felt yourself slipping into your own mind and memories every moment since; unable to get the last look she gave you over her dropped shoulder out of your head. The way her voice cracked and the way her fingers gripped your wrist as you wrapped your arms around her and dropped your head onto the back of her neck and whispered  _ goodbye _ and  _ I’m sorry.  _ You keep hearing the way she sighed, resigned to the decision you made, and it echoes through the chambers in your heart. Over and over again.

_ “I think,” you start and you have to remind yourself to breathe through this, “I think it’s wise we end this.” _

_ She’s packing up her bag, just a light one, to return to the states for two weeks. You focus on her hands as she folds up a scarf, mechanically and slow, and her hands still just briefly, before resuming their meticulous pattern. You think about those hands, about how they felt on you just hours ago. About how they traced down your spine and about how they dug into your hips and how they gripped at the headboard. _

_ You think about how you can’t imagine those hands anywhere else and you squeeze your eyes together and you can’t help the way you hope that maybe she didn’t hear you and maybe it isn’t too late to take this all back. _

_ “Oh.” But she did hear you and you break. _

_ “I just think, with the kids and with everything else with your family and-- you’ve got stuff to sort out and I’ve, well I’ve never been so good at sortin’ out things. I--I think that maybe--” _

_ She turns to you and her face is dull, hollow, and you want to take it back. You want to take it back and take her into your arms and promise her that it is enough, this is all enough. _

_ “Jamie, it’s fine.” But her voice is small and it’s not fine, nothing is fine. Because you’re sitting here, in her bed, and your clothes are discarded on the floor and it’s felt like just the two of you in this little bubble for so long now that you can’t imagine what it will be like to step out of it, out into reality where it’s not just the two of you at all. It never has been. _

_ But then she’s looking at you and her eyes go from dull to hard and you think that maybe she can see through you, can see through this novel hero act you’re pulling - because you aren’t really a hero at all.  _

_ She turns her back to you and you are fighting against everything, every fiber of who you are and what you feel, to stand up and turn her around and beg her not to go. Your eyes are glued to the curve of her hips and the way her hands are trembling as her folds become sloppy and rushed.  _

_ The ache to get up and wrap your arms around her from behind becomes so powerful that you dig your hands into the back of your neck and squeeze as hard as you can just to make sure you can still feel something. Anything. Still make sure that you’re still there and that this is happening and that she’s only minutes away from walking out of this room, this house, this relationship that you so unwittingly and unconsciously fell into.  _

_ “Actually, I think it’s best if you just go.” And you can’t see her face but you can hear the way her voice is caught in her throat and you know that if she were to turn around, right now, her eyes will be filled with hurt and tears and regret. _

_ All you can hope as you gingerly stand out of this bed that has slowly turned into what feels like home is that she doesn’t regret you and doesn’t regret this. And you know she can’t, won’t, because Dani couldn’t. Dani would never. And neither would you. _

* * *

It’s late in the day when the kids come running inside, tracking slush into the hall, and giggling from their time outside playing in the snow. The fire in the kitchen is crackling and the embers are striking the cage holding them inside like a tiger trying to be let out of its cage. It’s late and the day has been long and Christmas is tomorrow. There should be joy, there should be joy.

Hannah yells to them to go upstairs and clean themselves up for supper. Owen is making shepherd’s pie and you can hear the way he laughs at a joke he’s just told but the sound doesn’t register in your ears. You hear, like a far away cry, the way Hannah whacks at his arm in a way that you should find so comforting and warm but it’s late. It’s too late. 

You focus on the flames. You watch how rapidly they come and they go and the disappear and then another is reborn beneath it. It’s brief but you wonder how it would feel to hold your hand right over them. Would it burn?

There’s more noise and more echoes and it all feels so hollow the way the sounds ping around from side to side in your head but all you can equate it to is the way that the children in Charlie Brown hear the teachers - loud and nonsensical. That’s what you feel, you feel loud and nonsensical. And it’s getting louder and louder and you’re not even sure if it’s real until Hannah’s hand on your shoulder pulls you back to now. 

“What do you say?” She’s looking down at you with a question in her eyes and you travel back into your thoughts to try and find what she asked.

“Sorry?” You say and you look over her head and back to Owen who has the same confused look mirrored on his face.

“I asked if you’ve heard from Dani at all since she’s been gone.” 

You look back at the blaze. It’s raging now, angry and wild. It’s fighting to escape and you realize that the flames aren’t disappearing and reappearing but rather just growing; one on top of the next. 

You shake your head in the negative and you hear Hannah’s sympathetic acceptance of your words before you feel her hand travel from your shoulder to your arm and then fall loosely away to her side. It’s a tether to here and now and for that you’re thankful.

“I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.” Hannah says as she places a glass of wine in front of you and you grab at it immediately and let the way it burns your throat pull you back to reality.

“She knows the number here. I haven’t heard the phone ring, have you?” And it’s not really fair, not after the way you left things. You didn’t fight or claw or beg her to stay. You just walked out, and she let you. She let you decide.

“What’s going on there, then?” Owen asks the question with an air of indifference that you know is just a front, just a ruse to get you to talk.

“Nothing.” You brush him off, hand thrown out above your head, wishing away his probing questions.

“Jamie.” Hannah’s tone is stern and perceptive and you think that these people know you better than you like at times.

“Sorry to tell you but there’s not much to say.”

Hannah and Owen share a look with a silent conversation. You envy them really, the ease that their relationship, albeit unspoken, holds. The way that they haven’t crossed over a line that they can’t come back from. The way that they can protect their own hearts.

Owen mutters to himself more than anything but you still hear it when he says, “I am willing to bet that there’s a whole lot more than you’re saying now.”

And of course there is. There’s a book in your head that you’re writing as you go about every single emotion that is stirring inside you, eating away at your insides. There’s a list of words -  _ one, two, three -  _ that contradict every bit of indifference that you are trying to muster up here and now. But in the end all you can say is,

“It’s just better this way. Safer, really. In the long of it all, she won’t even remember--”

“Jamie don’t be--” Hannah closes her eyes and shakes her head and you want to believe her naivety but,

“Realistic?” You laugh, self deprecating, despite yourself.

“Stubborn.” 

_ Flor _ _ a had finally fallen asleep. The tears that had streaked her face were dry and crusting and you had wiped them away with a carefulness that you hadn’t previously known you possessed.  _

_ She was still now, heavy with exhaustion from the day and the night. Hannah had told you that you didn’t need to keep staying at the house, that she had the children taken care of after sundown, but you remembered what it felt like to be motherless and innocent and scared. You remember what it felt like to fall asleep alone, cradled only by your own sadness and fear.  _

_ It had been three weeks since the Wingraves, all three of them, had died. But you could still remember how Flora’s voice, so soft and innocent, asked who would tuck her in at night. You had barely slept in that time, and you had left the manor even less. Only choosing to return to your flat to check up on your plants and grab a spare change of clothes periodically.  _

_ You were tired, exhausted really, with the new role you had taken on but sleep never found you. You often stayed awake at night, listening to the quiet hum of the crickets and live that ticked away outside the halls of the seemingly haunted home. _

_ Haunted not with spirits, but with sadness. Haunted with memories and emptiness and desolation. It was all consuming and it was trapping you in it’s grip.  _

_ Some nights, you stared at the ceiling and some nights you stared at the walls and others, you walked. You walked the property and breathed in the air and remembered that you were alive - remembered that despite feeling the hollows of death, that you weren’t there. That you were here. _

_ And then, you ran into her. _

_ It was an accident, of course. You walked to the lake and watched as the full moon bounced off the still waters. Your eyes traced the way the fog lifted and settled just above the cold, dirty water. And then, _

_ Your eyes latched on to the darkness as it slowly emerged. At first, slow and unassuming. And then, there and pernicious.  _

_ It didn’t occur to you to move out of her way. It truly should have but you were rooted in place - unyielding to her presence as she approached you. Somewhere, somewhere deep inside you, you knew that you could just step aside and you were safe. But instead, something inside you insisted you play chicken with mortality. You couldn’t say what it was, maybe it was indifference or maybe it was naïveté - maybe it was your own lack of desire to continue going on as you had been. Maybe you were looking for something in this mysterious figure. _

_ And then, _

_ There she was. Standing in front of you. A mirror of yourself, seemingly. Real, unwavering, whole and empty at the same time. Her eyes were gone and her face was without detail, but you could feel her soul. You felt her sadness and her anger and you never moved. But she did.  _

_ One step, one healthy step towards you and you felt a cold brush that felt like dread and death and fright and then she was gone. Like you had swallowed her up and were left standing desolate and detached from the roots that had previously held you still; like the soil had released its grip on you and you were free to go. _

_ It was late and it was cold and you were alone out there in the dark. _

_ Except you weren’t alone. You’d never be alone again. _

“You could tell her, you know?” Hannah’s voice brings you back to the warm and the fire and the comfort of familiarity and family. 

You think about it, just for a brief second, because you know that you couldn’t. You think back to all the times you looked into her eyes and you saw the reflection of her own trauma. You think about how she told you about the noise and the loud and the way you calmed her and you can’t help but fear the way that your noise would deafen her if she knew.

She’s delicate, Dani is. She’s precious and sensitive and she’s got this way about her that you just know she would try and soak up any darkness in you and take it on herself and you couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t allow her to. That’s not the way it works.

Dani is pure and whole and you think she would be the one, she  _ is _ the one, but you can’t have the one. Not when you’re two.

Hannah looks at you with pity in her eyes and you don’t want it. It’s your fault really, for not walking away from Viola that night. For not walking away the night you met Dani in the pub. For not walking away in the greenhouse, or in the laundry, or in the kitchen, or the study, or her bed. It’s your fault you fell in love and it’s your fault that now you can’t continue to be in love. And you can’t have her and Hannah’s pity at the same time so all you say is,

“I really can’t.

_ You quickly learn what it means to have some other soul trapped inside of you. Most of the time it oddly means nothing.  _

_ She’s dormant most of the time. Almost to the point that after that first night, you forgot she was even there. You woke and you were you, and you remained you for nearly a full month before she came back again.  _

_ It’s slow at first. Much like how she emerged from the water. She peeks out, just a small amount, just a little, just to remind you that she’s there. Then gradually, bit by bit and month by month, she becomes just a little stronger, just a little more insistent.  _

_ The first moon of every cycle, she wakes and she walks. You wake and you walk alongside her, in her, with her. _

_ It’s not like you feel her, not really, not at first. You feel the motions you go through and you’re vaguely aware that you aren’t controlling it, that your legs are moving and you’re mechanically going through the motions of thinking and acting but you aren’t present - just a passenger on Viola’s Wild Ride.  _

_ It’s cold and it’s dark and you feel shrouded in murk and shadows and you feel dangerous, so dangerous, but you can’t explain it. You can’t explain why. You just always feel on the precipice of doom. _

_ And on those nights, you stay at Bly. You have to. You don’t have a choice. Viola insists. _

“You deserve to be happy.” Hannah is pouring you another glass, you think the third, though you aren’t sure how much you’ve had - you just know your fingers are buzzing and your heart is aching and you’re wishing that everything could be a little bit easier.

“I don’t though. Not-- not after everything.” And it comes off more despondent than you intended because what you mean to say is not that you can’t be happy, that you can’t allow that feeling for yourself, not in the way that it isn’t possible, but in the way that it’s just too  _ dangerous. _

“That wasn’t your fault.” Hannah’s voice is stern and you know that she means it and no, it wasn’t, but it’s too risky and it’s too much and,  _ and, and. _

_ And so, you let Viola have her monthly voyage. It’s dark and it feels ominous when she takes over but she feels relatively harmless and it’s all she seems to want to be able to have that little bit of freedom to see and touch and be in the space that was once her. _

_ You have Viola’s thoughts, somehow, though you aren’t entirely sure how it works. You just know that for that one night a month, you can feel her memories. You know what it feels like to be her, to have her life and experience and her anger and her sadness. You know she hates injustice and she cherishes innocence. You know how she would react to emotions and thoughts and situations. _

_ Which is why, when you see them, you instantly know that there’s nothing that you can do to stop her from what’s about to happen. _

_ They are by the statue garden. You, well more Viola, feels their presence before it’s seen. There’s anger in the air, dangerous rage. It’s thick and it’s foul and it’s deadly. _

_ You turn the corner and Peter has Rebecca in his grasp. His talons, sharp and cruel, locked into her shoulders to where she can’t move. His face is glossed over in fury and he’s shouting in her face. He’s hostile, though your hearing is clouded and you can’t make out his words.  _

_ Viola listens. And with every step closer to them, your body is rapidly becoming more her and less you and you try to push her away. You try to feel as calm as you can but her anger is boiling and you’re getting pushed aside further and further as Peter’s temper has gone from a flame to a blaze to a full fire that cannot be tampered out. The embers are catching and flying and soon they set Viola alight and you’re gone. You’re gone and it’s dark. _

The logs in the fireplace are simple smoldering ash now, the flames have died down and you’ve let them.

There’s an empty bottle of wine on the table and you look to Hannah who has been watching you wade through your memories - letting you mull and stew and she hasn’t offered you anything other than a pour of pressed grapes and an ear to listen when you decide to speak.

“It’s not worth it, Hannah. It’s not worth it for her.” You smile and it’s sad and you want Hannah to believe that you’ve made peace with your decision to end things with Dani. You want to believe it too.

“You know you would never hurt her.” It’s Owen this time and you know he believes it. But,

“But what if somebody else does?” And it’s what you’ve been asking yourself every minute of every day of every month since Dani Clayton walked through that front door.

_ Peter Quint was dead. The how and why and who of it all was inconsequential because all that mattered was Peter Quint was dead and it looked like it was your hand that caused it. _

_ You weren’t sure that Rebecca believed Hannah when she came running from inside at the girls shrill screams.  _

_ Hannah explained what she already knew, what you had already told her and she accepted without question. She explained Viola and the beast that lurked behind your hazel eyes just once in a full goddamn moon. She explained her possession and her hold and how you weren’t you and you couldn’t be you and you would never.  _

_ You would never. _

_ And it took a few months but Rebecca seemed to accept the reason. She seemed to accept that you, or Viola, whoever it may have been, was protecting her. Because what you came to find out over time was that Peter didn’t just have Rebecca by the shoulders but he had her by the neck. And with every sharp inhale of her breath, her lungs were closing and she was walking one step closer to death, one step closer to becoming nothing.  _

_ You couldn’t explain why, but the thought of this life being taken so carelessly infuriated the woman lurking under your skin. It bubbled and it clawed and it broke through and no longer was the beast tame, it was free.  _

“You’ve got her under control now.” And Hannah was right, you did. But she wasn’t who you worried about anymore.

Because after Rebecca walked herself into the lake and you saw her body float, you knew that Peter Quint wasn’t the only victim of consequence when you stayed rooted in the ground that one awful night. Because Peter was a selfish little twat and he was coming back for revenge, coming back for you, for what you love, and you didn’t know what he would take next. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time on Haunted by them Fuckers; more about how Jamie has tamed the beast and what exactly happened to Rebecca and how Peter fookin' Quint is a little twat.


	9. are you the answer i shouldn’t wonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I'm back. I've been mulling over this chapter for a few days now and eventually had to tell myself to just post it. It's not my favorite but it's full of angst so there's that.

_ She’s a shadow. That’s really what she feels like.  _

_ Most of the time you don’t even realize she’s there. She’s directly behind you as you face the sun and you can’t see her or feel her - she’s just… there. She lurks but she doesn’t haunt. Not really.  _

_ You aren’t consumed by her in a way that’s frightening. You barely notice her at all, not at first, as if she had always been there. Just a shadow of you. At least, on the days when she’s asleep.  _

_ But as the moon approaches each month, the shadow moves around you like the light is rotating. The further the light, the closer she gets. First you feel her just out of reach like she’s following far behind, then she’s at your side, then nearly in front of you, then you’re one. The light is directly overhead and the shadow is no longer a separate part of you at all. _

_ It’s when you’re one that you feel her entirely. You feel her anger and her love and her thoughts and her dreams. You feel her memories and what she craves and you find that when you deny her anything, when you tell her no, that’s when it gets worse. _

_ So you let her have you, just for those nights she wakes and walks. You are aware of nearly all that you do, she seems willing to let the two of you share your body most of the time. She controls where you go and she controls what you think but you’re there and you feel it all. It’s odd - like being out of your body but knowing what it’s feeling. Like she could hold your hand above a flame but you’d be the one to feel the burn. _

_ She respects you, you think, for the most part. She lets you be all the other nights and let’s you live, but she lingers always as a shadow. Always in the background. Always there, always aware. _

_ Viola is fiercely brave, you find, but she’s also fiercely stubborn. She’s strong and independent and she’s a believer in justice. She believes in fairness and that’s the biggest problem because you find that Viola was never really treated fairly; not by this world, not by herself, not by her family. _

_ She reveals herself on your walks, every moon cycle, and it comes in bits and pieces. She felt cheated in this life - cheated out of her two great loves; her husband and her child. She craves them, craves what she felt with them. She craves the passion and fire of maddening love. She craves the pure innocence of a daughter's love. She’s lonely, you think. She’s lonely and she just wants to be loved. _

_ And the more she comes out and the more she thinks of them and what she’s lost, the angrier she gets and the more it builds. Her energy and her pull at war with the earth and all that belongs to it. Like waves, it collects as it rolls and her determination to find peace becomes chaotic as it collides with the shore.  _

_ You don’t remember the night that Peter died, not really, but you remember how she felt when she took him, trapped him, cursed him to a forever in a hellish purgatory. Bly, forever at Bly, that was his punishment and Viola was confident that it would be torture for him. She trapped people here with her, finding reason for each one to be condemned to the same fate as her. She was the judge, the jury, the executioner.  _

_ And from then, you had to lock her back. You had to harness her down, fight her off, feed her what she wanted to be fed just to keep everyone safe. _

* * *

Christmas had never felt so lonely. You spend it with the kids, and Owen, and Hannah, and you spend it with the walls that had become your home, but it doesn’t feel full. It feels empty and needing and you ache with just wanting to hear her voice.

She still hadn’t called and you still hadn’t left. You found pieces of her throughout the house in memories of the last several months you’ve spent wrapped in her. The way the floor creaked beneath your feet had always played like an alarm bell to when you were getting closed to being caught with your hands halfway up her blouse. Now, it just felt like a cruel reminder that you were here and she was there and you didn’t think you’d ever get back to being where you were together. Not like that.

Not after.

But it was the right thing to do. That’s what you kept telling yourself on repeat; at night, in the morning, in the day, in your dreams. In every space and moment you miss her, you repeat it in your head. 

You miss her, so you garden. You miss her so keep your hands dirty and you focus on the life you can maintain. You let the buds bloom and you watch them as they grow and feed off the light and the air and you remind yourself that there are some things you can control and some things you cannot.

There’s beauty in the life cycle of the plants and it’s a reminder that everything, even the pain you feel on each expansion of your chest, will turn over and rebirth and that you can still control something. You can still control this.

Flora and Miles wake on Christmas morning and there’s joy in their eyes when they run downstairs and they see gifts piled up under the tree you chopped down in the woods and you’re reminded that there’s purpose in this. There’s purpose in your sacrifice and it’s a boy and it’s a girl and it’s their innocence.

You miss her, so you smile. You smile and you laugh at Owen’s jokes and Flora’s insistence that the morning is splendid, perfectly so, and you try not to miss her.

You buy Miles a train set and Flora a doll and she wraps her hands around your waist and it’s the first time in days that the air lifts around you. 

“Miss Jamie, I love it!” Flora cries out when she rips the paper apart like only a child does. 

“Do you now?” It’s said in jest because Flora has already run away and is digging into the next box, the next paper, with her name scribbled all over it. 

“Flora, slow down!” Hannah yells with a laugh on her lips but Flora keeps ripping at the bows and you know it will just be a mess to clean later but it’s worth it to hear them laugh like this.

This has been the tradition for the last handful of years. You and Hannah and Owen had committed long ago to make sure the children never missed out on a holiday. You couldn’t provide it quite like their parents did with lavish gifts and feasts and the sort, but you could provide warmth and family and home.

You watch them as they poke and prod each other teasingly and you think that Dani would be happy to see them like this.

You wonder what she’s been doing, how she’s been sleeping, what she’s been feeling. You wonder if her mother welcomed her home with a big hug and or if she was happy to see any friends she had left behind. Dani never talked about any of them, nothing of any value, so it’s hard to imagine her there. 

You wonder if she misses you too, but you hope she doesn’t. You think it would be too hard if she did. You think you wouldn’t be able to make yourself walk away again.

Miles pulls at Flora’s shirt when she reaches for one of his toys.

“One left for the both of you.” You note as they each run back to the tree.

“But there’s three here, Miss Jamie.” Miles pouts his lip in confusion and Hannah reaches to grab the last one, unfamiliar to her.

“That’s for Miss Clayton when she returns.” You tell him while you take a swift sip of tea and try not to meet Hannah and Owen’s eyes, littered with questions you didn’t want to answer.

It’s small, it’s nothing really, but you had picked it up in town a few weeks ago and you knew the blue sapphire would match her eyes and you didn’t think twice when you shucked out a couple hundred pounds of your savings for it.

“I’m sure she will be very pleased to come home to it.” Owen remarks and you shrug it off.

“S’just a necklace.” And it was, it was only a necklace, but it meant so much more than that.

_ You’re acutely aware that you’ve allowed yourself into a memory but you can’t seem to worry about it, not when you remember which one this is.  _

_ It was one of the last. _

Stop thinking and just be here. Just you and me. 

_ Those words echoed through your head as you followed her up the stairs in silence. They echoed through your head as she shut the door, locking it, and led you by the hand across the room.  _

Just you and me, then. Just you and me, Dani.

_ That’s all you wanted, was for it to be just you and her. But it wasn’t and it couldn’t be. It could never be. But you wanted this and you wanted her so you took it. Selfishly, wholly. _

_ You sit heavy on the bed and you watch her as she stands just out of reach from you. The air is loaded and heavy and you have to remind yourself to breathe when she reaches for the buttons of her shirt. Your fingers toy with the bedspread, wanting to reach out but feeling that this moment is pointed and purposeful and if she’s going to give herself over willingly, you better be ready to take it. _

_ She makes her way towards you and you watch her with unburdened eyes. With each step, your heart pounds stronger, reminding you to focus on this,  _ just you and me. 

_ Her steps are loaded with implications. This isn’t a hallway or a closet or a corner of the greenhouse. This is a bed and it’s Dani and it’s home and you never want to leave.  _

_ And when she lifts her knees on either side of your hips and lowers herself into your lap you wonder what it would have been like to meet her in another life. What if you had met her in a life where you were free of the duty that you unwillingly had taken on? What if you had met her in a pub and taken her home and bought her coffee in the morning and supper at night? What if you were always you and always here and could promise her forever? _

_ What if you had been able to love her without fear? What then? Would she love you too? _

_ She kisses you and it’s slow and you’re melting into her, or she’s melting into you, and you commit the taste to memory. She tastes like sweet and like coming home and you think that maybe you’ve never belonged anywhere before, not until her. You think, you think, you know. _

_ And your eyes are starting to fill with an ocean of memories all at once and it becomes too much for you to take. Because that feeling is one of considerable disaster just on the horizon, and it’s approaching fast like a wave building at sea - larger with each inch it travels closer - and you know you can’t stop it. You can’t stop it so you just let it, _

_ Crash.  _

_ The tears flow and she catches them with her lips and her tongue and her eyelashes on your cheek and the moment feels heavy but, still, she says nothing. She says nothing as she pushes back on your elbows to look up at her above you and you don’t need words. They aren’t important. Feeling her - here, now, in the next moment and the one after that - that’s important. Letting her cradle you while you manipulate yourself into believing that there can be a tomorrow, that’s important.  _

_ You know in a few days you’re going to have to decide but why can’t you have now? Why can’t you just love now?  _

Just you and me, then. Just you and me, Dani.

_ And as Dani lifts your shirt over your head and the cold night air hits your back - you try to reason with the woman inside you. You beg her to let you have this. You beg her to let you have Dani. You plead; take from me what you want, just let me keep her.  _

_ But it’s silent. It’s silent when you pray and the next wave is coming so you grab onto the fingers that are gripped on the back of your neck just to anchor you down just to keep you from drowning in this. _

_ And later, when you dot each of her ribs with your lips, you grip onto her hips and pray you won’t float away. _

_ And later, when she rolls her tongue up the center of your thighs, you grip at her hair to fasten yourself down. Her eyes meet yours and you hope she can see that you love her. You hope she can feel it when you tighten around her fingers and then release that you decided, long ago, that you were hers and whether she could ever be yours too was irrelevant. You decided and you aren’t going back on that. _

_ And later, much, when she’s sated and sleeping beside you, you kiss her shoulder and you mumble three words that you’ve never said - not when you truly know their meaning. Because while you always said it to be heard before, you’re saying it now to be known. Known by you, by the universe, by the beast inside you, by the woman they are meant for. You say them so that they’ll soak into her skin and into her heart and she will know. _

_ She doesn’t stir and you hope that it’s enough. _

Hannah’s voice is an echo in your ear as your eyes blink into focus. “Where’d you go, love?” 

You smile up at her and it’s easy to say, “to a place I never wanted to leave.” 

And you think she knows what you mean when she nods at you and then to the little ones and claps her hands once before standing with a start and offering to make a pot of tea.

* * *

It’s late when you pick Flora up off the ground and carry her to bed. You’d lost the night in and out of laughs and memories around the fire. 

You lay her beneath the blankets and tuck them softly under her chin, trying not to wake her. The effort is in vain when she blinks up at you gently. 

“Do you need me tonight?” She croaks but her eyes are already closing again and you smile and brush her hair back on her head before dropping a gentle kiss on her forehead.    
  
“Not tonight, sweet girl.” You say and move to turn off the light on her nightstand.

“Oh that’s rather good because,” she yawns big and you hold a laugh in your throat at her innocence, “I’m quite tired. It was a big day.”

“It was a big day. Goodnight.” 

_ As it _ _ turns out, Flora was the cure. _

_ You were on a walk; or; Viola was on a walk, late one night and her rage was simmering, mad with loneliness when Flora crossed your path and you started to panic that this could be a dreadful twist of fate so you began to claw back at the woman inside you. You knew Viola’s urge to hold a child once again and you felt the way she looked at the small girl and her anger and sadness and longing grew and grew. And when Flora looked up into the eyes she knew as yours, had known her whole life, and opened her mouth with a small, _

_ “Miss Jamie?” you wordlessly begged her to run. You tried to tell her with your eyes. You tried to get her to leave and to hide and to never cross Viola’s path again. She was tired and she blinked up at you with an air of purity that you hoped Viola could understand. _

_ And then, _

_ You felt it lift. You felt this anger lift and the beast calm and you thought that maybe Viola did, she understood.  _

_ And when Viola reached out your hand, you felt the way her tiny palm gripped onto your fingers and Viola was at peace. A type of peace that you had never known; the peace of a mother holding her child. You know, somehow, that that’s what this is. _

_ So from then on, every full moon, Flora came with you on your walks. _

_ You had explained it to her, in the best way you could, and she never seemed to question it.  _

_ “I have a passenger, Flora. And I need your help.” And she nodded and she smiled and you felt that pull again. The same one that Viola felt that night, the one of pure and unhindered love for a child that wasn’t your own but you loved her as such.  _

_ Flora somehow knows when Viola is coming, though you’ve never explained the way it works to her. You think you wouldn’t have the words, not in the way she would need them. You fear burdening her with this, you would never want her to be encumbered by your dark mystery. But it’s a relief when she comes down to the front door to meet you every moon and she holds out her hand for you to take so the two of you can walk. So you can keep everyone safe. _

_ “It’s our special secret,” she whispers one night out by the lake. “Like the secrets I had with my mum.”  _

_ And the word, the meaning behind it, seems to be it. It seems to be the key to controlling this silent soul that’s hitched itself to you and you’re powerless to stop it now. _

* * *

It’s nearly midnight and it’s nearly the new year when the phone rings. 

Hannah answers it and you know immediately that it’s her when the housekeeper laughs and says, “Owen was starting to worry that you may have forgotten about us all.”

You try to focus on Miles and the story he’s telling you and Owen about a puppet and a string but you can’t help but tune your ear into the corner of the room and what Hannah may be saying to the woman who stole your heart away and took it to the states. 

“The kids have been very well behaved.” She says and you can imagine Dani’s smile at the news.

You look at Flora who is beaming and Miles who looks content and you scrunch up your nose at them.

“You  _ have _ been very well behaved.” Your eyes narrow and it’s mostly joking but it’s also a little hesitant because Miles is very rarely well behaved these days. “What is it that you want?”

And just as you think it, you watch the way his grin turns up wickedly and his hands fold over themselves on the table in a way that’s far too mature for a child his age. He leans back in his chair and he watches you. He watches and you think you might see it - see what this is. But then,

“Yes, yes, she’s right here actually.” You swallow and look away from him and over to Hannah and the pit that’s in your stomach opens up and it vacuums everything else inside it - swallowing you whole.

Hannah holds out the phone to you and you look down at your hands. You make sure it’s you, fully, here and present, before you walk over, pick up the receiver, and put it to your ear. 

You watch as Hannah wrangles the kids from their seats and whispers to them that it's time to go upstairs and to leave you be. Flora skips off and you watch as Miles watches you carefully, with questioning eyes, before turning on his heel and following his sister out of the room.

You listen to her breathe for a second, content to just know that she’s thinking of you for a moment. Know that your minds are both on each other, in the same space, and you can pretend that she’s wanting you as much as you are right now.

“Hannah tells me you’ve been a good stand-in since I’ve been gone.” Her voice is high and it sounds different, unsure, and you think maybe she’s just as nervous as you are. 

“Oi, well, I don’t know ‘bout good, but I’ve made my way through it.” The way the cord of the phone spins and tightens around your finger is mesmerizing - the way the blood collects and releases from the tip. 

“How have they been? I mean really?”

You click your tongue on the roof of your mouth and think back to the last 10 days.

“Flora has been good, she’s been Flora.” Your eyes look around you and the air is still.

“And Miles?”

Miles, well, Miles has been both Miles and he’s been something else and you can’t find the words to articulate that. Because you’re starting to think that maybe Miles isn’t always Miles, not really, not entirely, in the same way that you aren’t always you. And you can’t figure out why that is. So instead of words, you just hum in response.

“How--um, how have you been?” Her voice lowers and softens and it feels like the Dani that shows herself only to you. The Dani you prefer.

“Honestly?” You ask and you think you can hear her nod. Your voice drops to a whisper and your head drops to the wall. “I fucking miss you.”

It’s the most honest thing you’ve said in weeks, you think, and you’re relieved when she doesn’t say anything back. You don’t need the words, you feel it - she misses you too.

Instead, she clears her throat and it’s so quiet when she says, 

“I told my mom.”

You shake your head and open your eyes. You wonder if Dani looks like her mother.

“Told her what?” 

“Told her about you.” You laugh it off because you can’t imagine that she means,

“Blimey. Bit bold to share that sort of intimate details, Poppins.”

But she doesn’t laugh with you. No, she’s silent and you can hear the way she shifts the phone from one shoulder to another before she takes a deep breath. You imagine her eyes close and you wish she would open them back up because the world deserves to see their beauty. She takes another breath and another pause and the longer it stays silent, the more the impending drop of what comes next builds. You think you know what’s coming but you don’t. Not really. Not at all. Not when the next thing she says is,

“I told her how I’m in love with you.”

The air leaves your lungs and she’s never said it before, especially not as casually as she’s saying it now, and you feel like you’re spinning. “Dani—“

“And that you’re in love with me too.”

You’re spinning and you think you want it to stop because it’s too much. It’s all you’ve ever wanted and it’s all you know you can’t have. She’s too much and you can’t take care of her the way you should and,

“I told you, I  _ can’t. _ ” You let the word burn your throat as it comes out. You hope she knows that this is the truth but it’s also an omission because you didn’t say  _ I don’t.  _

“But you are.”

And of course you are, and you’d never deny it but,

“It doesn’t matter if I am or not. I can’t. It’s not the way this works.”

And you hate that it’s not. You hate that it can’t just be that simple. But nothing is simple when you have to keep her safe.

“I--I don’t understand what that means.”

“It means, I can’t make promises that I’m unable to keep. It means that there’s so much you don’t know and that there’s so much I can’t tell you. It means that it’s safer for you--”

“Jamie,” she interrupts but you don’t hear her.

“--I can’t. It’s too--”

“Jamie.”

“--much for you to have to take on and--”

“Jamie.”

“What?”

“I heard you. I heard you every night whisper it into my hair or into my skin when you didn’t think I could but I heard it. And I love you, too. And that’s enough for me.”

And you can feel yourself cracking, feel how you’re splitting into two. Because there’s part of you that feels like with her you could beat it and fix it and save it but then you remember Rebecca and you remember her lifeless body and you remember the look in Miles’ eye and you remember Dani bleeding on the floor of the kitchen and you remember the feeling of Peter’s throat in your hands and all you can think is,

“What if-- what if love isn’t enough to calm the demon that lies beneath?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts! We are getting close to the end. About 3 or 4 chapters left. Anything you want to see? I probably won't do it but I also might.


	10. i've been waiting to show her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys still with me?
> 
> Fun fact, I have a tattoo of text with some of the words in this chapter. I won't tell you which one, it's not the one you'll think, but it's a little easter egg.

The new year didn’t bring much newness. In fact, it brought a lot of the same monotony, in and out, each and every day.

It was cold, January, and the buds were freezing over each and every night. The work kept you busy, tending to their hibernation, tucking them in at night and waking them up in the morning. It felt damn near impossible to keep anything alive and you tried not to dwell on how it didn’t just feel like the plants but like death was seeping into each pore of your life.

The days were short this time of year, you had more darkness to wade through. More time to lie awake. More time to think of her and what could be, what should be, what won’t ever be.

Dani was back, she had been back for a few weeks now, and you had spent the majority of that time avoiding her. It wasn’t something you were proud of, it wasn’t something you wanted to do, but you didn’t have the words. You didn’t have the words to beg her to understand why you couldn’t love her in the way she deserved. You didn’t have the words to tell her not to give up on you yet, either. Because maybe she should. So you hid away, in the weeds, in the trees, in the plants.

Your phone call with her on New Years had ended much like your relationship - abrupt and arduous - with a softened sigh and a frustrated rub to the eyes and then Dani muttered  _ “I can’t keep trying to prove myself to you.”  _ And you should have stopped her, should have said that she didn’t need to prove anything, nothing at all - it was you that had to prove you could handle her safely, gently, delicately. But you didn’t. You let the line click and die.

And now you were strangers. Strangers in love, strangers in pain, strangers all the same. 

You had been doing much of the same dance since she had been home. You would start early, she would come in for coffee late. You would skip meals, she would skip playing with the kids in the garden. You would zig, she would zag. Your magnets flipped on their ends; repelling away from each other all the while knowing that if you just did it, just straightened back out, you would pull her back into your gravity.

You could count the words she had said to you since she came back. You had, actually. You did every night while you would lie in bed, holding on to the syllables and the way her verbs rolled off her tongue. Each were stifled, they didn’t purr like they did before. They didn’t send chills down your spine or warm your heart on cold nights. They merely hit you, bounced off, and fell to the ground - waiting for you to pick them up and put them in your pocket to look at later.

_ “You’re back.” She’s standing in the kitchen, washing out a cup. Her manner gentle, easy, like it belongs here, belongs at Bly. She’s a fixture in this place just as much as the rest of you are and your heart seizes. _

_ “I’m back.” She doesn’t turn to you, her tone is cool and clipped, but you watch the way she scrubs just a bit harder. _

_ You take a small step forward, hesitant and slow, wanting to reach out and grab her and kiss her neck and tell her you missed her. Instead you say, “Owen didn’t say you were coming home--” _

_ “I asked him not to.” She sounded so different than the last time you had heard her voice: when she begged you to stop this all from crumbling beneath you. Then, it was hopeful and confident and now it was resigned and indifferent and hurt. And you did this, you reminded yourself. You did it. _

_ “Dani, I--” _

_ “We don’t need to do this.” The cup drops into the drying rack with a clank and she puts her hands on either side of the sink, bracing herself, as her head drops down low and her voice mumbles into her chest. _

_ “I don’t like the way we left things.” You take another small step forward. You could do it, you could fix things. Right here, right now you could fix things. But, _

_ “How did we leave things?” She laughs and it’s rancid and dying and it burns your skin.  _

_ You swallow your words because they are meaningless. You left things exactly how you intended; ambiguous and sour. She begged you to fight, and you crawled away like a coward. _

_ She turns to you and you see the noise in her eyes. “Listen, Jamie, you’ve made it clear that you don’t think this, whatever this is or was, is worth it so let’s just-- let’s go back to… I’m here for the kids. We’ll leave it there.” _

_ “Dani. That’s not--” you want to yell  _ that’s not true  _ or  _ you are worth everything,  _ but you beg her to understand when you say, “it’s  _ complicated.  _ It’s so complicated.” There’s desperation in your voice and it’s unfair how you want her to knock down these walls you’ve built when you can’t even hand her the sledgehammer. _

_ “Well,” she walks by you and it’s so close and you can smell her perfume and her shampoo and you close your eyes and close your fist to keep it by your side. “I’m uncomplicating it for you.” _

_ And you can feel the tears at the corners of your eyes. They are sitting there, holding on. Every part of you is holding on, waiting for your courage to spring up and save you from this pain but it shutters in your chest when the last thing she says is, “I love you, Jamie, but I can’t do this anymore.” _

_ And everything shatters. _

That had been weeks ago. Weeks of feeling this hollowness inside your heart as you went through the day to day motions. It was there when you slept, when you woke, and when you walked. It was there in the moments in between. Nothing but this emptiness that you couldn’t fill, but you started to find that Viola could.

It came, first, late one night. You were lying still, letting her words play in your mind over and over again. Her saying  _ I can’t do this anymore _ echoed in the chambers of your head, ringing between your ears on repeat, when you felt something. It was just a twitch, just at first, a twitch of something deep down that felt outside of you.

It was like a tug. A little thread of your heart being pulled out from you and being pulled into her. You couldn’t pin down what it was, not explicitly her, but not undoubtedly you either. It was a darkness, a sorrow, that felt like a black hole you were falling into and couldn’t pull yourself out of.

Slowly, through the days, your mind began playing back memories that weren’t yours like a tape deck skipping through highlights. You felt a child, young and innocent, but it wasn’t yours. You saw a man, handsome and gentle, but he wasn’t familiar. And yet you ached for them, for their attention, for their love. Just as much as you longed for Dani, she longed for them. The pain rode parallel with yours, like a sidecar on it’s way to an abyss you couldn’t pull back from. 

From there, it grew. Viola’s pull grew. The memories paused on some days but the pain wove in and out of your soul like a vine growing rapid on a tree. It wasn’t the root, but it was the tentacles and it buried itself, burrowed in deep. 

And you didn’t know how you knew, but you knew it was trying to fill the void you left open; the void that was left by losing Dani. And you tried not to let the irony snap at you. 

Because you lost Dani trying to keep her safe from Viola’s presence and as it turns, Dani was what was keeping her away.

* * *

As midnight approached, you curled under the heavy blanket and shivered. You decided to sleep in the greenhouse tonight, you didn’t want to risk running into Dani in the dark halls of sundown. You didn’t want to risk Viola seeing her, seeing what left the void she so easily had begun to fill.

It was below freezing and the way the wind blew against the trees howled, like a dark echo of life haunting the trees. Ice crackles as it sets on the petals of the flowers and you feel the ice settle over your heart. And you wait.

Flora came to you, your savior through the darkness. And when Viola appeared and took ownership of your body, you walked. Hand in hand, body in soul, side by side. You walked with Viola and Viola walked with Flora.

Viola never said anything, you never said anything but Flora did. She would talk about her day, about what she was learning in school, about what she thought of the weather and Miles and the music you would play for her in the garden when nobody was listening. She would talk and Viola would listen and the bitterness of Viola’s heart would abate. 

If you thought about it much, if you stopped to think, it was funny that Flora was the key. This small and imperfect child, innocent and green to the world’s most grotesque misfortunes despite the amount of pain she had already been forced to suffer, was somehow the only thing that could thaw the crystal that gripped your soul on those nights the Viola took over.

And yet, it wasn’t just Viola that began to soften. You think maybe you did too.

She’s telling you, you and Viola, a story now. A tale of a cat and an apple box and it’s imaginary and you are only really absorbing the words and unable to really take them in but you can feel how Viola reacts to it all. 

And it’s quiet inside, the noise settles and Viola stills until you hear it, hear her,

“Flora!” Her voice is high and tight, cracking at the top.

_ No, no, no. She can’t be here, not tonight. _

Flora stills and turns and her voice is nervous when she sees her. “Miss Clayton? What, why are you out here?”

You see her through a hazy lens, aware that she’s there but powerless to tell her to go. The air stills and your heart lurches before Viola catches it, gripping and holding tight. Everything is black around her and her features blurry and you see nothing else but her glow, her presence. 

“Why am  _ I  _ out here? Why are you out here? Why-- why aren’t you in bed?” She looks at you, her voice angry and wild and quizzical. “Why do you have her out of bed?” And you know it’s directed at you, you can feel her energy climbing into your throat and you beg Viola not to speak.

Your heart is beating fast and you’re clawing to get back to the surface, back to control and you want to respond when you hear her ask, “Jamie?”

Flora drops your hand, steps forward and away and Viola sizzles inside. “She didn’t though. I came here on my own.”

_ Dani, please go. Please go back inside. Please. _

“What’s going on? Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?” She’s frantic and scared and you find yourself in a battle with the woman inside as you feel her anger build at this woman, a woman unfamiliar, threatening her peace.

_ Dani, it’s not safe. _

“I am perfectly fine, Miss Clayton. I just wanted to see Miss Jamie and walk with her. We do this every time.”

“Every time? I-- what do you mean by every time? Let’s get you inside, you’re freezing.” Dani grabs at Flora’s hand and looks back to you and her features come into focus a bit more. You latch on to her eyes and you beg.

You beg the clock to hurry. You beg Viola to go, let Dani go, let Flora go. Let you go.

“No.” The words sound like you, they feel like you, but they are hers. Hers, and they are directed at you. Telling you no, no she won’t go. They are stifled and hoarse, but they are her thoughts and your cadence and Dani’s eyebrows furrow in befuddlement. 

_ I can’t protect you from myself. This is why, this is why. Don’t you see? _

“I really would rather stay here, if it's all the same to you. I think I’m needed.” Flora pulls her hand back and Viola stutters, hopeful and lonely and you fight,

“Jamie?” And it’s curious, how each time she says your name, you’re a little bit stronger against the beast inside. You come a little bit back to yourself. 

_ Say it again.  _

“She doesn’t like to talk much on nights like this.” Flora’s voice is quiet, almost to herself entirely, working through the mechanics of it all in her own head.

“I don’t understand what that means, Flora. Jamie?”  _ Say it again. _ “Jamie what’s going on?”  _ Please, please say it again. _

This battle of will is exhausting and you feel yourself fading in waves. Stronger, then weaker, then stronger, then weaker. And each time the wave swells, it comes back more enraged from being pushed aside. You had never fought this hard.

“She’s going to get angry. It’s probably best if you head back to bed.” Flora is no longer meek but she’s firm and she’s pushing back on Dani and you are thankful for her more in this moment than you have ever been.

“Jamie.” It’s the last time she says it and it’s full of something that sounds a lot like fear and maybe understanding and it’s what breaks it all in the end. The darkness drops and you’re you and Viola is gone and Dani is just there - looking at you with these eyes that are saying  _ please let me in. Please tell me what’s happening.  _

Your breathing is shallow and you feel like you’ve just run a million miles to get back to her so when she gives you a pointed look, craving the answers behind your tired eyes, it’s all you can do not to just start crying. 

She steps forward and places a calming hand on your cheek and she just  _ knows.  _ She knows there’s something wrong when her voice drops and she leans in close and she whispers, “We will talk about this when you’re ready.”

It’s time, you think. It’s time to tell her. 

* * *

When you were young, you used to pray that God would send you a sign that everything you suffered through was worth it. You would lie awake at night, pleading for somebody to answer you. You would close your eyes tight, and no answers would ever come.

Over time, you stopped believing. Stopped believing in truth and God and karma and everything else that people insisted would eventually even out all the world’s inconsistencies. 

When you were 30, Dani Clayton walked into your life and you started to believe again. You started to believe that maybe there was goodness and pureness and belief in this cold, dark, decrepit world. 

And as she lets you sit here in silence, waiting to find the right words, you are thankful that your prayers were never answered until now. 

“I’m not sure how to start.” You look down at your hands and you study the dirt under your nails. The clock ticks and the sound of it vibrates the quiet as it counts down to nothing.

“Begin at the beginning.” You look up at her and there’s a gentleness in her eyes and you don’t understand how you ever got lucky enough for her. “And just go on till the end.”

It sounds simple, but you don’t know where the beginning or the end is. You’re only somewhere in the middle and there’s no way of telling exactly where.

“This  _ place _ isn’t what it seems. There’s a… darkness here.” You beat your hand on your chest once, twice, and let your hand hover over the heart below that doesn’t completely belong to you.

“There is this darkness that, no matter what I do or how hard I fight, I can’t seem to kill it.”

“Okay. Okay, so, there’s a darkness.”

“Like, I can’t quite-- I’m not always  _ me.”  _ You pull at the ends of your shirt just to give your hands something to do. “And I know that sounds, it sounds absolutely crazy but sometimes I’m not me.”

Dani, for all that she is, isn’t startled by this. She doesn’t seem bothered or skeptical but rather accepting and she nods for you to continue. 

There’s a wave in your voice and you so hope that she understands what you mean when you say, “I can feel her, deep, and sometimes she has these horrible, awful, feelings and I am completely powerless to stop her. She just-- she takes over and--”

“Who does?” Her hand reaches out and stills your moving fingers. Your eyes lock onto hers.

“You’re going to think I’m mad.”

“We’re all a little mad.” She smiles and you don’t think you could love this woman more. “Try me.”

And you tell her. You tell her about the first lady of Bly and her memories and her loss. You tell her about her tragic death at the hands of the one she trusted the most and you tell her about the anger that wells inside of you when you get trapped in her memories. You tell her about her love for Flora and how the young girl calms the demon. You tell her and she nods and she hums but she never flinches. 

You tell her about the moon and midnight and Flora rising to meet you. You tell her about the lake and the way it calls out to you, begging you home. She nods along when you explain how it all stills in her presence. You tell her about the before, the during and the after. You tell her about how she’s stronger every day and about how you fear the comfort that’s growing inside you each time. She accepts the hows of it all and with each passing word you sink more into yourself and into Dani and into her confidence in you.

“I must sound absolutely mental.” You chuckle and it’s watery and you wipe at your eyes, ridding them of the moisture that builds.

“I--” she scoots her chair closer to you and lays a gentle hand on your neck, pulling you into her eye line and she holds you steady, rooted to the ground. “I see the noise in you and it doesn’t scare me.”

“It scares  _ me _ though.” You fight to hold her there, fight not to run. “I’m scared she’ll hurt you. She’s hurt somebody in the past, well-- more than that. She’s not just hurt she’s-- and when she gets angry I can’t fight her off.”

The moment feels charged as she studies you, looks deep into your soul and you know she can see you. She can really see you in a way that nobody can, in a way you can’t even see yourself. And she’s about to open her mouth and say something profound, you just know it, when-

There’s a shuffle and a click behind you and you watch her eyes rise over your shoulder and study on the figure behind.

“Miss Clayton?” The blood inside you runs cold at his voice.

“Hey, um, hey Miles. What’s up?” She chokes out the words, putting on a cheerful voice the best she can.

Miles steps closer, hands in pocket, with a smirk on his face as he stares right at you. It’s calculated and it’s cold but Dani doesn’t see it. She never sees the bad in somebody.

“I seem to be having a bit of a problem. You see, Flora has lost her doll in the attic and I can’t seem to find my way in the dark. She’s sick with worry over it.” His voice is high and you narrow your eyes because it just feels so, foreboding.

“Can I trouble you for a moment to help me find it? I would be forever indebted.” He looks back from Dani to you and there’s a glint there. A twinkle of something other and you want to reach out to her and tell her no. Tell her not to go, that you don’t trust this.

“Are you okay? I promise I’ll be right back.” She looks at you. “Can you-- can you stay tonight?”

“I’ll be right here.” But she’s already up and almost out of the room and you lock onto Miles as he stands fixed in his place.

She’s gone and it’s quiet and you watch as the corners of his mouth turn up and the look on his face is sinister. The same one he gets any time you’re alone with him and he’s not himself. He’s not the boy you have watched grow. He’s something else, something destructive.

He wobbles on his heels. “Don’t worry, Jamie darling, I’ll take good care of her.”

And it hits you, while he walks slowly out of the room with a whistle on his lips, why Miles hasn’t felt like Miles. Why he seems crooked and vacant and brimming to the edge with malice. It hits you because the only person that had ever called you that in that insidious way was-

Your legs have you up and moving quickly after them. There’s a pit of dread in your stomach at the way his smile cocked to the side and the way he looked at you as if you were already gone. And you can’t explain it, can’t explain why you just know that there’s something wrong with the way he said it, but you don’t trust him.

And you’re expecting to find some answers when you turn the corner. You’re expecting to find something. What you’re not expecting to find, looking back at you, is,

Rebecca.

* * *

“I am mental. I really am absolutely fucking mental aren’t I?” You look around as if the walls will have the answers.

“Jamie.” Her tone is firm and it’s exactly as you remember it. She’s proper and pretty but commanding and there’s really not room to question that she’s there in front of you. Somehow.

“You-- what is-- how are you here?”

She’s a vision, just as beautiful as she always was, but she’s also hollow. There’s vacancy behind her brown eyes and it reminds you of the way you last saw her. The way you saw her before she died - like the life had been sucked out of her.

“We can’t move on. I’ve tried but I just can’t. There’s something here that’s keeping me here and keeping him here and he’s not at peace.”

And you don’t know why but the word plays over and over in your mind; Viola. Viola.

“He’s going to take her, Jamie.” It’s somber, the way she says it, as if it’s obvious. As if you should already know.

“Who?” But you  _ do _ already know, you already know because you think he’s been here and he’s been watching you.

“Peter. He’s going to take Dani.”

Your heart lurches in your throat because, no, that can’t be. That can’t be what she means. You don’t want that to be what she means.

“Take? What do you mean by take.” She’s silent and you step towards her, wanting to reach out and shake the words from her but you know that you can’t. “Rebecca?”

She levels you with a pointed look and everything stills and drops and falls around you.

And it’s strange how, in this moment where you feel your whole world being snatched from your grasp, how you feel her. How you feel Viola, how you feel her seize too. As if she feels your pain just like all the times you felt hers. And it should be alarming to have her here in this moment, but for some reason it feels comforting.

“He vowed, he looked me in the eye and he vowed to take from you what you took from him. He’s already taken Miles and he’s going to take her too. And I can’t stop him,” her head is shaking and there’s fear in her voice. Fear for a woman she doesn’t know but Rebecca did always have a pure heart, “but I think you can.”

And she doesn’t say how. But that thread in your heart is pulling and pulling and you seem to know this too, you seem to just  _ know _ what it is that will keep her safe. And part of you wishes you had held out from telling her just a little bit longer because you know that you can’t hang on to this demon much longer.

Because when the moon rises and the sun sets, what it comes down to at the end, is that it’s all just so… dangerous. You’ve always been dangerous.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I know I said the angst would only be a few chapters and I lied. I am not sorry about this. But resolutions are coming. And they are coming like, really really soon.


	11. i hold the lock and you hold the key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys still here? Hi.

Spring had always, without a glimmer of doubt, been your favorite time of year.

There was something entirely rewarding about watching these delicate buds, these seedlings and saps, that you had nurtured through cold and wind and frost spring up from the ground and show their heads to the sun. It was your favorite thing about plants, the way they were reborn. 

Lately, and nearly always, you feel beyond your own control. She had rooted herself more into you, more into your thoughts and feelings and you felt yourself slipping. Always slipping and never able to hold on to the air above your head. You were fading, digging into the soil with the roots and the dark and you hoped that somehow you’d be able to be reborn too.

You’re losing time.

It’s been happening more and more lately, more than it ever has before. You wake up and you can’t remember where or how or why you’re there - like finding yourself in a room you don’t remember walking into. And it’s curious because in all this time, these last few years, where you’ve had a passenger on board, you’ve always been the conductor. But now, now, you’re at her mercy. Now, you’ve almost lost you and almost become her.

But there’s a bit, just a small bit, that Viola can’t will away. She can’t push and claw her way to the surface, she can’t overstep her bounds, she can’t take control - not when Dani is around.

Dani knows this now too. Not explicitly, not through words, but she knows that when your eyes gloss over, when your movements become a little too cold, that all it seems to take is your name from her lips and you can right yourself back into the sun. 

Dani; the way her lips touch your cheek. Dani; the way she smells like lavender and honey and how it reminds you of laundry on a warm summer’s eve. Dani; the way her voice cracks at Owen’s horribly stupid jokes. Dani. Dani is the answer.

But Dani is also the question. Because you’ve come to realize what you’ve absolutely always known - you can’t have them both. And it doesn’t feel like it’s your choice to make.

You’re losing time and you so desperately want it back. You want those minutes, you want those hours, all with her. All with Dani.

It’s been weeks since you saw Rebecca’s soulless silhouette standing before you but it feels like days. It’s the twist of this all - that the closer you get to the end, the less time you have to fix it. 

You know that it’s coming, the pinnacle, the curtain call, the end to this all. The wheels are off the track and you can’t for the life of you put them back on as you skid faster and faster towards the mountain wall. You can’t be sure what happens when it comes, you can’t be sure how exactly it ends, but you know it’s coming. You’re powerless to stop it.

Miles, you know fully now, is not Miles. Miles is Peter, or rather, Peter is Miles. And you can’t quite work out how that is. 

But you know, and you know  _ he _ knows that you know. You can feel it in his eyes as they sear into the back of your neck when Dani grazes your hand in the kitchen. You can tell in the way he’s always listening to the hushed way she asks if you’re okay. 

And it’s odd; that your enemy has become a child. It’s more odd that your enemy is in a child that was always a child until one day when he simply wasn’t. One day the sweet boy who loved trains and mud puddles and you - he was gone and instead was a bitter, lonely, wretched man. A man whose life you took. A man who was desperate to even the score.

You’re losing time. You’re all losing time.

* * *

_ He’s going to take her. _

That, just those five short words from the girl who was once your friend, echoed through your mind nearly every moment of both your consciousness and your memories. 

You didn’t tell Dani. You couldn’t find those words, those utterly mad words to tell her that the child she tended to was actually plotting to take her from this earth. They felt silly, almost. Like if you said them aloud you’d breathe life into their existence. And you could still fix it, you could still save them both. You knew you could - you just had to figure out how. Just a little more time.

_ Jamie stop, you’re killing him! _

Another five words, the same friend. You hadn’t meant to. You would never mean to. Five more words that haunted your every minute on this earth. They haunted you and they were destined to haunt the girl you love.

“Jamie.” The tunnel closes and fades. You’re sitting with her now, by the fire, warm and safe. 

“Yeah?” The light re-enters your eyes and your soul settles back. You blink once, twice, and turn your head to the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen.

“Where did you go?” She pushes a lock of your hair back behind your ear and smiles gently at you. It’s all you need.

“Here and there.”

That had become your phrase - your words for when you weren’t you. Here and there. Because you were - you were here. You were here in body, in mind, in spirit. But you were there too - tucked away, tucked somewhere beyond reach, tucked where you couldn’t get to yourself. Here and there, that’s where you were.

You preferred it here, always here. Here; curled up in front of the fire, Dani wrapped in a blanket, you wrapped in her. Here, where the wind outside whipped against the glass and startled all your nerves. Here; safe and alone and not afraid of tomorrow.

“What do you say to a little trip to the city?” She turns her body into you, bringing her legs up over your lap and laying them down. It’s intimate, the way you never feel lost with her. “I can ask Hannah to watch the kids. We can get a little bed and breakfast, drink some wine,” she leans in close, her breath warming your ear and sending a wave of chills down your spine. “We don’t even need to leave the room.”

And how simple it would be. How simple it should be.

How simple it is when you take her cheek gently into your palm. How simple it is when she turns her head into the touch and kisses the pad of your thumb. How simple it all feels when she looks up through long eyelashes, soft unspoken words swimming in the lazy river of her blue eyes. 

They say  _ I love you. _ They say  _ this time, please stay. _

Stay, stay. The word rolls around, teases the corners of your mind. It feels like the key you’ve been searching for. It feels like the out, like the answer.

“Have you thought about how long you want to stay?” You ask it easily as you reach for your tea on the table. Nonchalant and unintrusive.

Dani tightens the blanket around herself and blows the bangs out of her eyes. “I was thinking just maybe two days, or a long weekend. I know that you have a lot of busy work but I just thought--”

“No.” You straighten yourself, righting your mind. “No, I mean-- how long are you planning to stay here. In Bly?”

“I don’t-- what do you mean?” Dani pulls her legs back, a furrow on her brow that you desperately seek to smooth out.

“I mean, this can’t be forever can it? You can’t possibly want to stay out here in some miserable countryside town forever.” You try to keep your voice light, like what you say isn’t tearing you apart.

Because you think, you think you know, that the best way to keep Dani safe is to keep Dani away. Away from here, away from you and the beast that lurks beneath, and the man in the boy that longs to get you back for all that you took. Away from danger, away from the glue trap. Away. 

You suck in every bit of air you can and, “I think you need to go, Dani.” You release it through shaky lungs as your head drops into your hands, unable to look at her. “Go back home. Go back to the states.”

“What-- Jamie, no. No. I’m not--” There’s panic in Dani’s voice as she lifts her legs off your lap and cradles them into herself, shielding her heart from the chance of you breaking it.   
  
“You have so much more to give the world and you can’t do it here next to somebody who can barely remember where they put their keys from minute to minute.”

“I’m not going. Stop saying that.” Her voice is higher, harsher, louder. It cracks at the top and you hate the way she sounds like she knows she’s about to lose you.

“You can find yourself another girl, you know? There would be a million of them lined up for you.”

And you have no doubt. There could be somebody better for her, somebody unbroken, somebody who is just them. Somebody who doesn’t come with a shadow and a threat and all the things you are powerless to protect her from.

And the thought of it, of somebody else’s hands on her skin and their lips of her body makes your stomach turn and drop but the thought of her not, of her- it’s far worse than anything else you can imagine.

“Jamie, stop.” She’s grabbing at your shirt, trying to pull your focus back to her. You know what she’s thinking - that this isn’t you. She’s thinking that you’re not you and if she just says your name with enough conviction that maybe you’ll come back. And you wish, you wish beyond every wish you could make, that it could be that elementary.

But you’ve decided. You’ve decided that this is the only way, it’s the only logical way and,

“It’s not fair to you to have to constantly make sure I’m still… here. And it’s-- it’s too dangerous.”

“Stop!” It’s the angriest you’ve ever heard her and it’s what finally gets your mouth to shut and for your mind to stop. “Fuck, Jamie, quit pulling this ridiculous hero act and let me make my own decisions, okay?”

She’s looking at you and you know that you won’t change her mind. And it feels like the one chance you had and fixing this has gone and floated away in the fire, burnt to soot and ash. But her eyes are glowing and your heart is racing and she’s leaning in. You can’t be her hero. You can’t be what she needs you to be.

“Yeah,” You kiss her once. It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. It’s never going to be enough to save her. “Yeah. Okay.”

* * *

It’s been weeks, maybe even months if you had any idea how to count time anymore, since you last left the manor. You’ve slept by Dani’s side since the night you told her about Viola. She thinks its because you feel safer here, you tell yourself it’s to keep watch of her, but the truth is that you’re just trying to get as much of her as you can before,

Well. Before.

Your mornings nearly always start the same now. With the rising of the sun, that’s when you’re most you. That’s when you’re most whole. It’s how you wake up with her sometimes beside you, sometimes wrapped in behind you, grounding your soul in your body. It’s with the way she breathes in through her nose and out through the tiny part of her lips that you find comfort in the routine. It’s your time to imagine waking up like this forever; waking up beside her, wrapping your feet in hers, and kissing every inch of her until she’s stirring and moaning and pleading with you to stay just a little longer.

You imagine letting your tongue peak out to taste her under the warmth of the sheets. You imagine the faint mews that would spill from her lips, the way her hand would tangle lazily in your hair as she came further and further into herself, before coming into your mouth. You imagine her wet, wanting, taking. You imagine what it would feel like as you crawl back up her body only to be greeted by a hazy  _ hi _ and a sweet kiss on your lips. You imagine, and you are home.

It’s the fantasy you bury yourself in as you lace up your boots and set off to your plants. Viola will awake soon, and you want to be far away from here when she does.

But as you try to walk off one ghost, you’re greeted with another. 

“Good day, Jamie darling.”

He’s menacing, just as menacing as you remember him, and you think you might be imagining him as you stop in your tracks at the entrance to the shed. Until he steps forward from the back of the space and smirks in a way that’s nothing but certain.

“What do you want?” And it’s a dumb thing to say to a person that’s not even really a person and can’t really want for anything and you think this house has driven you absolutely mad for thinking you can have a conversation with a bloody fucking ghost to begin with.

“Just thought I’d come down to watch you work. You really do fine work here.” He’s stepping around your plants, looking into each pot of soil as if it’s just a regular day, a regular time, a regular conversation to have.

“Don’t be a prat, Peter.” You should walk away, walk back into that house. But the thought of him following you is terrifying.

“Ah. Not as daft as I thought, then.” There’s a chuckle on his lips and it sends a tickle down your back. You feel her stir. “Thought you’d be a little more surprised to see me. What with the last time and all.”

“What the fuck do you want then? What? I’ll do it, just tell me what you want.” And it may be the most naive thought you’ve ever had. That you can reason with him, reason with bargaining, reason with being able to ward off the intentions he has.   
  
His head shoots up at you with a quickness that has you stepping back. His eyes are hollow. You see them now, hollow and dead. “Bit too late for that. Would have liked to keep my life.”   
  
And you might feel guilty, if not for the simmering underneath your skin. The lady who was responsible didn’t feel an ounce of guilt, and she was making it known now as she seethed below.

“You got what you got, don’t think you’ll get any regrets out of me.”

He raises his hand to his chest, feigning a pain that you don’t know if he was ever capable of feeling, even when alive. “You know I always liked to take the piss out of you, Jamie. But I thought it was just a fun little game we played.” His lips snarled and Viola growled beneath. “But then you had to go and ruin it. You just had to take everything from me, di’nt ya? You know Becs wouldn’t even talk to me.”

And you want to lunge, lurch as his towering ghastly figure. Because you know what he did to her, you know how he took her from this world - whether it was his real or imaginary hands that were at fault.

“I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t kiss her. D’ya know how hard that is? Seeing the person you love right there in front of you and you can’t even touch them?” There’s a pull at his lips. It’s dangerous.

And you see where he’s going, the path he’s wondering down. And you don’t know if it makes you angrier that he would threaten her or that he would compare the way you love her to anything he was capable of feeling. 

“You back the fuck off of her, d’ya here me?” And this time, there is a snarl, audible and low. Your vision is tunneling and you feel her start to bubble. 

“It’s the worst kind of lonely. Better off for them to just be gone, where you can’t even see them anymore.” He’s picking at the leaves of a fern that you’ve been meticulously tending to with grace for weeks. Damaging all the progress you’ve made in just seconds.

You can’t ignore how much that feels like a metaphor for your life.

“I swear to God, if you go near her--”

He laughs, bellowing and nefarious. “You’ll do what? Kill me?” He clicks his tongue in three consecutive pops, “Oh, you've already done that ‘aven’t you?”

Something moves you. You think it’s yourself, but then you think maybe it’s her. Her, just as angry as you are. Her, maybe starting to attach herself to your heart too. But you’re moving and you’re there right in front of him. Offering the only thing you can, the only thing you hope he wants.

“This has nothing to do with her. You want me? Take me. Leave her.” And you mean it. You’d go right now, you’d walk yourself into your own grave if it meant saving her. And something sparks inside you at the thought.

“And the funniest part about it all is that I would be gone if it weren’t for your little shadow. It’s all her doing, keepin’ us all here. Won’t let any of us go until she can and I don’t think she has any plans to go.” Viola jostles at the mention and somehow you know he’s right. “Took me a while to figure that out, but… So as long as you’re here, I’m here. And taking that American muppet from you? Oh, that’d hurt you a lot more. And that’d please me just fine.”

And you’d open your mouth to say something back, tell him to leave Dani and Miles and everyone else be, but he’s gone. And you’re alone.

Well, not alone. And maybe it’s time you reckon with that.

* * *

It came to you slowly, and then all at once.

It came to you as you realized that you held the key from the start. You just didn’t want to see it.

You find her up in her room, your room, the room that had become your one safe place in this whole wretched world. The one place Viola, or fear, or doubt, never entered. 

You find her with the bedside lamp on, a book perched in her lap, a pen between her teeth. She looks angelic with the soft glow of the light curling around her head and bouncing back onto the headboard. 

She looks up at you as you click the lock, a smile pulling at her lips. Her eyes are heavy in that way they only ever get when she’s completely at ease. There’s always been this haunted quality to Dani, one that makes you want to exercise the demons and put away her fears in a locked box and throw it in a lake. The noise, she calls it. And when it’s just you and her and it’s this room and the noise fades, you think maybe it could all be that easy.

But tonight, you know better. Tonight, you don’t let the fantasy fool you.

Tonight, you lean into her harder, you kiss her slower. Tonight, you memorize the way she tastes - like hope and hellos. Tonight, you’re hers. Tonight, you’re finally ready to admit she’s yours.

Tonight, you go slowly. You take your time. You trace every freckle, every line, every spot. You bite at her flesh, just to leave your mark for as long as you can. Just so she doesn’t forget. 

Tonight, you swallow her moans, your name off her lips. You rock slowly, you curl deeper, you pull and you push and you gather every sound you can and commit it to memory.

Tonight, you wait until she’s nearly asleep before you can’t wait any longer.

“You know I am always going to love you most, right?” You whisper to her through bated breath. It’s quiet, still, and the words travel directly from your lips to hers, with no passage through space, hoping that they won’t float away.

She pulls back sharply and settles you with a look and a crease in her forehead that says she already knows the answer to the question she’s about to ask. “Why do you sound like you’re about to say goodbye?”

“I wouldn’t-- I could never.” And you wouldn’t. You could never.

“Then don’t.” There’s a single tear that streaks down her face and she’s clawing at your head as if she’s losing her grip on you. As if you’re slipping through her fingers. So you nod when her voice breaks on the word, “Promise?”

And she is, she’s losing her grip and you’re losing time and you may not have weeks or days or hours left but you have now. And you can promise her now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who read my other story, you know why I was gone so long (if you don't and are curious, there's a long A/N at the end of chapter 5. This is the penultimate, there's one more chapter after this. Thanks for sticking around!


	12. i've been taking on a new direction

You’ve never thought yourself to be noble. 

You’ve been many things throughout your life; stubborn, arrogant, indignant, naive, closed off. You’ve been heartbroken and you’ve been in love. You’ve been a warrior, fearless and humbled and headstrong in your quest for solitude. You’ve been lost and you’ve been found. But noble - no, you’ve never once been noble. 

And now, as you stand on the cold dirt, the mud squelching beneath your feet as you rock from toe to heal, from heart to hand, you think that maybe being noble was never what you set out to do anyway. 

It wasn’t noble to leave a note in scribbled lines across a ripped out piece of parchment. It wasn’t noble to kiss her while she slept, tears hot on your cheek, a line through your brow, and whisper all the promises you could never keep.

_ I will forever be yours,  _ you said into her chin as the sob choked in your throat.

_ I’ll take you with me while I’m gone,  _ into her hair as your vision began to tunnel and blur.

_ It will always be you and I,  _ into her temple as you let yourself slip away.

Away, away, away into Viola. It’s time to let her go home and take the darkness with her.

In the books you read as a child, tucked away from the evils of this world, you learned of the riches one receives when their valor is rewarded. There are feasts in their honor, there are jewels and crowns and beautiful women. There are drinks overflowing and toasts sung in high regard as they’re pat on the back and kissed on the lips by the damsel that they’d rescued.

You picture it now; walking with a straight spine and a clean mind back into the room, taking her by the hand, and marching out of Bly. You think of it now; slipping a ring on her finger, zipping a dress down her back, settling into a home that had pictures of you both plastered on the walls, bright smiles and light hearts and just you and her and nothing else that mattered.

You’d fight, lord you fight. You fight with her and for her but never against her. You’d let her tell you you’re wrong for the way you get jealous. You’d hate the way men and women would look at her, the way they’d touch her arm and make her laugh. You’d see red in her cheeks and blue in her eyes and all the colors of the rainbow would swirl. But she would always, only ever, have her eyes on you. Across a crowded room, across an empty bed, always you. 

You’d let her cry into your arms when she met a kid that just couldn’t be saved. She’d come home tired and sore from a day run ragged and you’d prop her feet in your lap and do what you could to soothe the ache. 

You’d celebrate the milestones; the birthdays, the anniversaries, the holidays and the weekends. You’d curl up with her while she watched an old black and white movie, you’d rest your tired head on her shoulder. You’d let her see you completely, wholly, unguarded. You’d let her see you at your weakest. Maybe that would be brave, maybe that would be noble.

You’d be there for all of it and she’d never be alone. If only you weren’t trying to be so goddamn virtuous.

To the victor comes the spoil. But it was all fiction, tales, a myth taught to scared children afraid to take control. You won’t be spoiled for this. You’ll be gone, alone, rotting away. You’ll be an empty vessel, no longer able to laugh, to kiss, to hold. You’ll be without her, she without you, and neither of you will rest.

The wind whips across your face, picks up your hair and lashes it around. It’s time. There’s no more room to be dangerous. 

* * *

The note had said that this was the only way.

You’ve seen no other path, no direction that would allow for her and you to live peacefully side by side. No route for Miles and Flora and Dani to safety. No mercy for Rebecca’s sweet soul, no punishment for Peter’s wicked ways. 

_ Tell me how to fix this,  _ you had begged her one night, silent in your head. 

She didn’t respond, couldn’t, but a sense of peace washed over you and the answer was clear. She’d do it. She’d be glad to.

Viola had caged them here, trapped them on the grounds, chained them to their immortal selves. It showed itself to you, one night as she had taken over. Her anger bubbling at Peter’s threat, his presence had knocked you off balance and her into a fit of rage. After that afternoon in the greenhouse, she tethered herself to you more, overpowered your mind. She was bitter and lonely and she was displeased with the trappings of her misplaced fury.

She was trapped, she had been for years, her one peace found in the linings of Flora’s smile. It was why you had been able to tame her, it was why you had been able to have what you had for as long as you had it. Love; it was the only force to fend her off. But Peter’s vile energy had delivered a crushing blow. No longer was it simple enough to take a child’s tiny hand, to hear the whispers from Dani, to allow your heart to fill with pure otherness. No longer - now she marched, seeking reprieve from the madness she caused.

And so,

You walk, your steps heavy and your heart hollow. Viola guides the way, you’ve granted her this final stroll. 

With each step, you reason. One heart, two minds, sharing thoughts like a wicked game of pingpong.

_ It’s not too late, _ you tell her.  _ You can still release him, release them all and just let me stay with her. _

She carries on. She won’t go alone. 

You don’t have it in you to move forward. The crunch under your feet is the soundtrack to your final battle. A hymn, silent and foreboding.

_ It’s not too late, _ you tell her.  _ I can take you out of here, I’ll share them with you. _

She carries on. It’s not enough. They aren’t enough for her anymore. Her soul craves rest, craves revenge, craves what she was never offered through her short and daunting life. 

And you had opened the door. You had stepped aside and let her in; her mouth on the bit, she pulls the reins from your hands. And maybe this was the wrong choice, you think. You shouldn’t have let her decide. For so long it had been you, you deciding, and then you gave your decision to her and this is what she chose.

There’s a madness inside, deep and low and scorching the earth. She’s set her mind; hard-knocked and determined to carry this through. She will end it, she will put out the darkness and she will keep you with her. You’re just a means to an end, shackled and bound beneath.

And now, with each crunch of the leaves, each squish of the mud, you walk further and further away from the sleeping beauty and just the note you left her. But you also walk closer and closer to a world where she’s safe. And that’s the one thing you can cling to as you lose your grip.

Two souls, one footstep. She marches on.

Until there are two. Two feet running. Two hands grabbing. Two arms spinning.

“Jamie.” 

_ There. She’s there. _

You can’t see her, but you can feel her. Her presence washes over you and you can hear the desperation in her voice. Her voice moves through you like an underwater cry, swimming and tugging you to the surface.

“Jamie, please don’t do this.”

She’d learned once that if she said it enough, Viola would abide. She could push her away, take you back, take you into her and tuck you into safety. She’d learned once that this would work, that she could reason with the lady inside.

But not now. The force was too strong now. There were too many weeds, the brush too thick to hack through. Viola had stuffed you down so far below the surface that you didn’t even know which way to go. And it was for the best, it was the safest choice, whether Dani could understand that or not, you were doing this for her. For them.

_ If I had any other choice, I’d- _

“Come back to me, okay? I’m right here, please come back. Jamie.”

There is a sob in her throat - you know she’s crying. In another world, you’d wipe the tears away with the pad of your thumb and kiss away her pain. In another world, you’d smile and nod and be by her side. In any other world, you’d be hers. You already were, you always had been. 

But not in this world. Not in this cruel place in time where you had already been claimed, staked out and bought, by a bitter soul who couldn’t let you be. Not in a world where your selfishness didn’t even allow you to say goodbye. You promised her you would never say goodbye.

Viola stutters, the thought of goodbyes digging into her consciousness. She never got that, never was afforded the chance, and that echoes in the chambers of your heart.

_ I’m clawing back. I’m trying to reach you. I’m trying, keep trying. _

She steps forward, a brush of her hand on your chin, a hard look into your eyes. You lean in, you can smell her, she smells like home. 

“Jamie.”

She’s home. Dani is home.

_ I’m here. I’m right here and-- _

“Viola.” 

The name, for so long unspoken, like a curse on the lips of whoever would dare utter it. For so many years, Viola had gone forgotten. Her memory relegated to an abandoned tale, with only Jamie to batten her to this world. Her name, now said with the tenderness of a caress, casts a beacon of light - Jamie can see it. Viola lifts and shifts and softens. Viola’s anger begins to abate.

_ She sees you. She remembers you. You haven’t been forgotten. _

“Let me keep her.” Dani is speaking to her, only her. And the change that occurs feels so monumental that you almost feel like an intruder in your own flesh. 

“I love her. Please don’t take her from me.”

_ Let me stay. _

And it’s brief, just a flash, but you think there’s a chance she just might--

“Miss Clayton!”

And suddenly, it's gone. It’s firing, Viola’s instinct to protect and guard. It’s immense, the way her heart aches at the memory of her own child’s small voice. She hardens once more and you think you’ve lost your chance.

“Flora go back inside.” Dani barks at the girl, her voice cracks with panic.

“No Miss Clayton, I--I must insist that I speak with her.” Flora’s voice is high and shrill. Her determination a force. And she’s not talking about you, she’s talking about her. It’s her she wants to speak to.

“Flora--” Dani reaches out to stop her, you’re sure of it. If you’re sure of anything, it’s that you both would do anything to keep her safe.

“No, I won’t! She’s my family.” Her hands grab at yours and the sensation reaches into your chest and wraps around your heart. Viola’s impulse stifles her anger.

_ She needs me. They both need me. _

“Let her go.” Flora’s voice is soft, pleading and innocent. The fog is lifting now, Viola is cracking.

_ I promise. I promise to keep her safe. _

“Please? Let her go.”

* * *

The water is cold at your feet - the way it sloshes against your ankles like a metronome as you take small steps further into the lake.

It’s quiet now, silent. The absence of sound is deafening - like when the power goes out in a snowstorm. There are no words that seep into your veins, no emotions that litter your heart. There is simply...nothing.

Viola rests, her soul easy, as she takes you deeper below the surface of the glassy ice water. She walks, metered and unhurried. Step by step, she settles into the inevitable. 

There’s an anxious amount of certainty in her. She’s finally going to rest, to take with her the destruction path she’s left in her tornadic wake. You don’t struggle against her, you are immobile, waiting for your body to dispel the torment it’s been hosting. To dispel the souls who had been cast on the grounds at her mercy. There was freedom in the air now as she let them all go.

The current pulls you under, your body limp, at peace. All light drains from your sight, the silence echoes, reverberating the ticking clock above your head. Counting down, counting the moments, counting the ways in which you left Dani and Flora standing on the shore. You’re counting, slipping, moving, and then,

Your eyes open and the water begins to enter your lungs. You choke out for air, the bubbles popping as they travel to the surface and your hands reaching for the surface. But you're alone. You’re finally alone.

* * *

The clock is ticking down and you’re counting the seconds. Nervous jitters running through your body. You look from the clock on the wall to the watch around your wrist and you just need to make sure you haven’t run out of time. Time always seems to go faster as the days fly by. Time ticking away, taking with it years of love and laughter and memories.

“Stop shaking your leg like that.” Dani chides in a hiss through her teeth, slapping down your knee as it bounces on the edge of the bench. The silver band around her fourth finger shines in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the church. 

“Sorry, just--” you stop your leg under her grasp and turn in to her, placing your hand atop hers, letting her turn her palm up and capture your fingers, “it just all seems very dangerous.”

“Marriage seems dangerous?” she chokes out a laugh, full and hearty in a way that warms you from head to toe to heart to hand. In a way that has never grown old, in a way that you hope never will. And when it quiets, she adds in a most playful way, “That’s always comforting to hear from the person you share a bed with.”

"Yes, Dani. Marriage seems dangerous!” Your tone is impish but your candor is sincere. “What if it doesn’t work? Then what?”

It’s something that has occupied your mind since she came home and put a ring on the table and asked what you thought. It’s something that you’ve bit your tongue about until this last possible moment - brooding silence, a notion with which you were quite familiar. 

“Then we deal with it not working.” Dani cups your cheek and her thumb on the bottom of your lip has always been what calms you. “But at some point you’re going to have to let her make--”

And you know, you’ve had this conversation just about a million times in just about a million ways. You’ve heard it from Dani, you’ve heard it from Miles but most of all you’ve heard it from--

“She’s thirty now. She’s an adult--” Dani’s smile is sideways in the way you both hate and love.

“Don’t bloody remind me.” 

“--and, she loves him.”

You roll your eyes. She can’t be in love, she’s still only a child. She’s only ever been a child. She was a child when she scraped her knee learning how to ride a bike. She was a child when she slammed her door and was grounded for breaking curfew. She was a child when she packed her bags, went off to University, and moved far away from home. She’s always been a child.

“Yeah well, I s’pose he’s fine.” You say it under your breath and Dani levels you with a look that says she knows that your version of  _ fine _ means absolutely fuckall. “What? I said he’s fine. Don’t much care for the--” you wave to the top of your head with a scowl on your lips, demonstrating just how you feel about his shaggy hair, unkept and frazzled every time he pops by for supper, “he’s got going on but, he’ll--he’s going to take care of her fine.”

It’s quiet out in the hall but the noise is picking up in the pews. The clock keeps ticking and you think you might still have time to grab her tiny hand and run. Run her away from any chance of hurt or heartbreak or absolutely any man that could boggle her innocence.

Dani senses the way your mind races and your back tightens and she nudges your shoulder with hers. “She can take care of herself. Got that from you, you know.”

And you suppose she’s right. She picked up her own toughness over the years. Her personality has adapted and evolved and grown. She’s gotten through everything life has thrown at her, she’s been by your side for all the times you needed her more than she needed a,

“Mom? Are you ready?” Flora pokes her head out of the small room where she’s been getting ready. She’s beautiful in her white dress, her hair pinned back, her rosy cheeks sparkling. She’s happy, and it’s a reminder that it’s all that’s ever mattered. No matter what else has happened, this is what it was all for.

“I’ll see you down at the end of the aisle. Take care of our daughter.” Flora steps out fully, giving Dani a hug before Dani leans down and presses a soft kiss to your high cheek, her lips lingering just a moment, her voice low and whispering, “you look excellent in a suit.”

You smile at the girl before you, taller than you now by almost half a foot. Your arm bent out for her to take, feeling the way your tears are already gathering in the corners of your eyes. When she had asked you to walk her down the aisle, you thought it’d be easy. You’d been doing it for years.

But as she wraps her hand around the crook of your elbow, you’re reminded of the small girl who would walk with you under the moonlight. The small girl who begged to save your life, who saved you in more ways than you’d ever be able to put into words. The small girl and her brother who Dani legally adopted only a few years later, your name never being officially on the paperwork but your heart always belonging in their hands. 

You walk with her now, on a new path, guiding her towards her future. The irony not lost on you as reach the end of the aisle and she turns to you with a smile as bright as the sun because she’d sent you on your way, and now you send her on hers. No longer were you slipping. You were here, grounded, and they were yours. 

Finally, yours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the journey. They have been a joy to write. Join me on my next adventure with these two lovebirds (it's already been started and I promise it won't take as long as this to complete)


End file.
